Travel to Australia, and watch this real life documentary, of people mining the Opal gemstone.
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TVTranscript
00:00On Outback Opal Hunters...
00:03This is the home of the black opal.
00:05Gives me goosebumps.
00:07The tunnel rats...
00:08I'm really hoping that this could be it.
00:10Are fighting to make a new start in unknown ground.
00:14Right on the black too.
00:16Yes!
00:18Solo prospector Cole Duff feels the heat.
00:21Really good for, you know, catching the opal.
00:24Hired to find new opal in the vast outback.
00:27There's some good areas to drill that haven't been looked at.
00:31And with Pete Cook out of action...
00:33I'm running out of ideas!
00:35It's the last roll of the dice for Apprentice Sam.
00:38It's not working!
00:40MUSIC
00:58MUSIC
01:05So lucky that, you know,
01:07Brad will come up here and make a new start.
01:10In the Grawan Opal Field,
01:12the temperature is pushing 40 degrees Celsius.
01:15The end of the season is just weeks away.
01:19But for tunnel rats Baden-Pierce and Lise Grove,
01:22their season here is just beginning.
01:25There's a lot of people who have come here from Coobabeedie
01:28and other places and had a fresh start.
01:30You're not the first.
01:32They've come here to seek one of the most valuable gemstones
01:35in the world, Black Opal,
01:37worth up to $43,000 a gram.
01:41If I can find some of that stuff, one stone,
01:44you could be looking at $20,000,
01:46just like 17 grand, 20 grand.
01:48We're not used to that kind of material.
01:52Whoo!
01:54That is... That is what I call Minterbee Opal.
01:57Yes! Yes!
02:00Two months ago, the tunnel rats hit the jackpot.
02:06It's just made things a lot easier for us.
02:08That's really changed my life.
02:14In the mining township of Minterbee,
02:16Baden and dad Rodney
02:18worked their 40,000-square-metre claim, Grasshopper.
02:29Look at that colour. That is beautiful colour, son.
02:32Yeah! Whoo!
02:34The mine produced their biggest ever opal find,
02:37worth $100,000.
02:43But the find of a lifetime ripped the family apart.
02:48Baden came and got me and sort of started pushing me back,
02:53and I started to push back against him,
02:55and he just dropped me down on the ground.
02:58He's suspicious of me taking money.
03:04He and I were mates.
03:06Mates. Not father and son. We were mates.
03:09We spoke about everything.
03:13There's Baden, when he was little.
03:16Not sitting on his mother's knee, sitting on my knee.
03:19Who's feeding him? His father.
03:22Who took him out on the tractor?
03:26Who looked after him?
03:33It's been pretty depressing, really.
03:36Makes it hard when there's someone there that you used to idolise...
03:42..that doesn't want to talk to you anymore.
03:45For the Tunnel Rats, there is no turning back.
03:52The town of Minterby is being closed down by the authorities
03:56and handed back to its traditional owners.
03:59So I've got a lot of work to do and not much time to do it.
04:05Rodney must abandon his off-grid home.
04:10The stress of having to move, it's very emotional.
04:19Nothing's in place and everything's stressful.
04:23I don't know what the future holds.
04:26I've got to make sure that everything that I own
04:29is taken out before D-Day.
04:34This is home for my four dogs and myself.
04:40It's not a nice feeling.
04:42A place you've called home for 26 years.
04:46It's a strange feeling.
04:541,500 kilometres away, to the east...
04:57So, reliable, you mean, like, stability-wise?
05:00Stable overall. It doesn't crack.
05:03..Baden and Lise are starting again
05:05with old friend Murray Muzz Cantwell.
05:09So this area that we're coming into now,
05:11this is what they call Millionaire's Road.
05:14A lot of opal came out of this area.
05:16I love the sound of that.
05:18Muzz, Baden and Lise have done a deal.
05:22Alrighty. So this is it.
05:24Explore an abandoned mine on Muzz's claim
05:27for a half share of any opal found.
05:31No-one's been down this hole for probably about seven years.
05:34Oh, wow. You said that claim was flooded out, eh?
05:37The claim down the bottom level used to get a lot of water in it.
05:40Now I'm from all the other claims around.
05:45I don't know what to expect. It's all new to me.
05:47One person at a time? Yep.
05:49Just hang on to the handrails.
05:51Three points to contact, put your feet in the rails and you'll be right.
05:55Meant to be a lot more stable ground. It's very hard.
05:58Here they're having to put props up to stabilise the ground.
06:02I'm really, really nervous
06:04jumping into a bit of ground that you don't know about.
06:07Righto. OK, I'm coming down.
06:10This ground's no joke. It can collapse on you.
06:19I'll show you a couple of spots where you're not allowed to go.
06:25That's a particularly bad area going in through there.
06:28This area's been mined.
06:30This is all out of bounds in through this direction through here.
06:32You can see where there's been fall dirt in there from the roof.
06:35That area off to that section is out of bounds.
06:38You can see the stability of these pillars here.
06:40We don't want to be getting anywhere near these.
06:43Everything here, all that, is roof.
06:46No props in it. Yeah.
06:48And that's what happened. It all comes down.
06:51So you quite often wonder whether anyone was underneath this stuff when it happened.
07:03For Pete Cook...
07:05Yep, limit down.
07:07..and Sam Westra, the season is coming to an end.
07:14Temperatures are rising.
07:1698.
07:17And so is the pressure on the master and his apprentice.
07:26It's been a pretty tough season so far.
07:30I haven't found much opal, and now Pete's down your shoulder.
07:33So, yeah, it's pretty tough going.
07:36Oh, I've busted up my shoulder.
07:38That's my main negative at the moment.
07:41That's a bit of a big-ass climbing up and down 50 foot of ladders with one arm.
07:45It makes it difficult even just to get dressed,
07:48let alone get anything done.
07:50Pete's injury has slowed their operation down,
07:53forcing 20-year-old Sam Westra to undergo surgery.
07:57Pete's injury has slowed their operation down,
08:00forcing 20-year-old rookie Sam underground, alone.
08:05You know, we haven't found any money the last couple of seasons,
08:08which is virtually two years of my life where I haven't really got paid.
08:16The partners are not even halfway to their $50,000 target,
08:20with only one more week before the summer heat will force them to shut down.
08:25They're mining the most valuable opal in the world,
08:28Lightning Ridge's black opal,
08:31500 times more expensive than gold.
08:35It's a very rare, elusive gem to find.
08:38That's why it's worth so much, because it's so scarce.
08:43It's pretty tough down here mining by yourself.
08:45It's really slow, and I've got to operate both machines at once.
08:51We'll call that a day, home time.
08:59Better find some opal, mate.
09:04It's all well and good for me when I'm by myself,
09:07but having career in the equation definitely changes that.
09:13So I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about it.
09:17Hello.
09:18How are you?
09:19Good, how are you?
09:20How was your day?
09:21Good.
09:22How was mining? Did you find anything?
09:24No.
09:25Just like every other day.
09:28If I found some opal to finish this season off, I'd have to stay,
09:32but if we don't find anything,
09:34it's probably time just to look at the reality of it
09:37and work out whether this is a good thing for me and for us.
09:48So, mate, have a look at these happy snaps.
09:51You can see all that should be full of tendon.
09:53Yeah.
09:54So I think there's four in total,
09:56and I've torn three of them completely off.
09:58Right.
09:59I've got surgery in a week.
10:01Well, can we do anything in that week?
10:04You can't do much, nor drive a truck or anything.
10:08I can still weld.
10:09I have a plan.
10:10Righty-o.
10:11Let's go have a look.
10:12All right, mate.
10:13Their hydraulically-powered one-tonne digger
10:16moves by dragging itself slowly across the floor.
10:20Pete has a plan to speed up both it and their mining operation.
10:25Looking at it from the side,
10:27so what I want to do is try and put some tracks or wheels on it,
10:31a drive wheel.
10:33In the middle will go a hydraulic motor.
10:37If you just hit some levers and it's like a little motor,
10:41and it's like a little bobcat or an excavator
10:45in that it drives itself along.
10:47So if this works how I hope it works...
10:50Yep.
10:51..you'll be able to do this by yourself underground.
10:53You won't need me there.
10:55Pete's got this new concept, which will work well if it works,
10:59but got to build them first.
11:02At the moment it's just a drawing.
11:04We'll see how it goes underground,
11:06because if it doesn't work, we can't mind.
11:09We'll see.
11:18Got a big drive, so got to make sure everything's right.
11:23Veteran prospector and self-taught geologist Cole Duff
11:27is preparing for an opal hunt in remote wilderness country.
11:32You've just got to have the stuff you need
11:34so you're not stuck in the middle of nowhere.
11:36If you're broken down and you've got to sit there for a few days,
11:38you want to have some water.
11:41Where Cole's going, temperatures can hit 40 degrees Celsius,
11:45in the shade.
11:47Out here without water,
11:49an adult can be dead within a matter of hours.
11:54Right, there we are here in Winton,
11:56and we're going to Opalville via Janda.
12:00Dirt most of the way.
12:03He's heading 400km south
12:07to the remote opal claim of old mate Ron Benny.
12:11It's one of the biggest opal operations in Australia,
12:15a multi-million dollar mine-to-market business
12:18where the opal is mined, cut, set and sold
12:23directly to customers in big city Sydney.
12:27Right, I am.
12:30Ron's hired Cole to find new sources of opal
12:33using his expertise in satellite imagery.
12:36That's the lease there,
12:38and that's a big fault structure coming through there.
12:41Opal is formed in ancient underground fault lines.
12:45Over millions of years,
12:47silica-rich water trickled through these natural cracks
12:50into pools and cavities known as gutters,
12:53forming opal.
12:55So these dark bits we can see,
12:57what we call gutters,
12:59which are really good for catching the opal,
13:02and it shows up as like a shadow.
13:05I've got a bunch of squiggly little shadows,
13:08and we're going to go straight to those places and see what's there.
13:14Cole has two days to complete his mission.
13:17I start to get a bit of excitement, a bit of adrenaline.
13:20We must be getting close.
13:23Can you smell the opal yet, Finn?
13:27Yes.
13:33Cole, good to see you.
13:35Good on you, Ron. I found the place all right.
13:38Yeah, that's good.
13:40Yeah, it's a big place. You can see those big structures.
13:43This here is what I'm very interested in,
13:46because you've got the Black Mine and the Galaxy Mine here.
13:49What's going on in between?
13:51And what's going in between there.
13:53Talk to you soon.
13:56First task in the field
13:58is to get a more detailed bird's-eye view of the area.
14:02Basically, we're looking for surface trace.
14:05If we can't find any surface trace,
14:07we should be able to pick where the ground's changed.
14:15Just going to fly down the valley a bit
14:17and see what we can see that sticks out.
14:20The aerial view is very important
14:23because it shows you some of those main structures.
14:26With a bit of manipulation,
14:28you can see some of the underlying stuff that's hidden from us.
14:36Turn off. Cancel.
14:40Cancel.
14:43Oh, you...
14:45OK.
14:50Yeah, totally lost the video feed.
14:55Don't break it. It's not a good thing.
15:08Just looking for any kind of loose rocks that might be hung up,
15:12just so no rocks jump on our head and try to kill us.
15:17Tunnel rats, Baden and Lees, are entering unknown territory.
15:25Watch your head. Yeah.
15:27With new partner, Muzz,
15:29they're scouting out a heavily worked abandoned mine
15:32in the unfamiliar ground of Grawen,
15:341,500 kilometres from their native Minterby.
15:38All of that roof in there would be sort of quite unstable.
15:42Well, unstable to the point whereby that's just a big slab
15:45and you can see separation in here.
15:47Just a whole different kind of ground.
15:49Like, it's... Like, with Minterby ground,
15:52it's more white sandstone like this.
15:54But as you can see, you've got the blow, as they call this.
15:59It's just all mixed up dirt.
16:01The problem with these walls is that they're that dry
16:04that they start to separate.
16:06Put your hand out, there's just as much likelihood
16:09that that could fall down and fall on you.
16:12It tells a story of it's paid money.
16:16We can show you around here now how well it's paid money.
16:24The miners who started this claim before had a fairly good run.
16:28There's more trees down here than there are trees on the surface,
16:31with all the props.
16:35And they didn't mine like that for nothing.
16:37Yeah, yeah.
16:39Knowing that this is the home of the Black Opal,
16:42it gives me goosebumps.
16:44Getting baby back into the swing of things,
16:46this is probably the best thing for him.
16:49Just comes and goes so quickly.
16:52Get plenty of leads, but all of a sudden...
16:54Just little, tiny...
16:56Tiny little bits and pieces.
16:58A bit frustrating.
17:10The fabrication's nearly done.
17:12We've just got to finish the plumbing
17:14and, yeah, we'll be right to test them out, see how they go.
17:19In a last-ditch effort to hit their target,
17:22Pete and Sam are building hydraulically powered wheels
17:25for their digger to move it faster and single-handedly.
17:29I hope this works, because once you're in for your op,
17:32now I'm a bit stuck.
17:34With Pete out of action due to injury,
17:36rookie Sam is carrying the entire operation on his shoulders.
17:41I don't want to leave Opal Mining.
17:43I love what I do up here.
17:45I'd hate to throw it all away and leave it,
17:47but sometimes you've got to look at the reality of things.
17:52Personally, I'm struggling a bit financially to make ends meet.
17:57A bit over just going to work eight till five
17:59and not getting anything in return.
18:01It's time to have a bit of a think about it
18:03and see how long I continue to do that.
18:08I can't see Sam staying here if we don't find any money.
18:12We've got to find some Opal.
18:13You can't just keep putting all your time in and all your money in
18:16months and months on end without a pay.
18:19I just hope I've got all the plumbing right,
18:21I hope it all goes together.
18:23Yeah, well, we're not going to know until we put it in.
18:3420 metres below ground,
18:36Sam's task is to connect wheels to the digger
18:39designed to give it more grip.
18:43Whoa!
18:48Try and get these wheels on myself,
18:50but it's not really a one-man job.
18:52It'd be a lot easier if Pete was down here.
18:56Ah, you...
18:58Have a hang.
19:01We didn't make these things light, that's for sure.
19:04They're nice and strong, but they're bloody heavy.
19:09So far, so good.
19:11Right, let's test this thing.
19:14All right, we're starting it up.
19:16Moment of truth.
19:19Man, it's not working.
19:32Oops, too far.
19:34Deep in the ground.
19:36It's not working.
19:38It's not working.
19:40It's not working.
19:42It's not working.
19:44It's not working.
19:46Oops, too far.
19:47Deep in the Queensland outback.
19:51Cole Duff is struggling with his drone.
19:53Yeah, totally lost the video feed.
19:55With only two days to find new opal sites,
19:58he needs the drone's aerial capacity
20:00to help him cover vast distances.
20:05I'll just bring it down manually.
20:08Oh!
20:14Do you know what I mean?
20:16Didn't think of that, eh?
20:18It's all good when it works,
20:20but, gee, sometimes it's an adventure.
20:22The drone has taken the images Cole needs
20:25to analyse the landscape
20:27and pinpoint areas likely to hold opal.
20:30We just took a couple of aerials, a video,
20:33a few oblique photos.
20:35There's some interesting features up here.
20:37You can see where, you know, some creeks join
20:40and the sort of stuff that looks interesting,
20:43you know, for an opal mining perspective.
20:46Right-o, let's find some opal.
20:49Cole's first target is a nearby dry creek bed.
20:53Need to walk it and just have a look
20:55because if there's anything coming out on those levels,
20:58usually it concentrates in the creek and you'll see something.
21:01Where there is water, there is a chance of opal.
21:05Once you've found something in the creek,
21:07well, you've got to work out where it's coming from.
21:09Cole's hoping to find signs of boulder opal
21:12that occurs in this area of Australia.
21:16Formed when liquid silica flows and solidifies
21:19into cavities in ironstone rocks deep underground.
21:22Over millions of years,
21:24movement of the earth and erosion
21:26have brought these boulders to the surface.
21:31So we can see these different boulders here
21:33lying on the ground that are weathering out.
21:35You can see this has got big cavities in it.
21:37Now, when that fills up with opal,
21:39that makes the most beautiful black opal.
21:41So we've got the rocks with the cavities.
21:43That's a good sign in the right place
21:45they'd make beautiful opal,
21:47but we need to find some trace.
21:52Finding one with opal would be a good sign of a major deposit.
22:02There's a bit of trace.
22:04We've got a bit of black potch in the boulder cavity here.
22:08Black potch is fairly exciting
22:10because you don't see it very often.
22:12When it makes colour,
22:13oh, it makes the best beautiful black opal.
22:15Somewhere that'll get better and start loading up
22:17and making colour, and then you've got a payday.
22:19But where?
22:23Well, not much opal today,
22:26but that's how it goes.
22:28But, um, that's how it goes.
22:30You don't find traces every day.
22:32We need a bit more than potch to get anyone excited.
22:37If Cole doesn't find any opal tomorrow,
22:40his mission to discover new deposits for mate Ron will fail.
22:45What happened?
22:47The motors are getting oil, but they won't spin.
22:51Right.
22:5320 metres below ground,
22:55Pete's plan to speed up their operation
22:58has come to a grinding halt.
23:01It's not working.
23:03It's not working.
23:05It's not working.
23:07It's not working.
23:09It's not working.
23:11It's not working.
23:13It's not working.
23:22Same thing.
23:24The wheels on their modified hydraulic digger aren't working.
23:28Still no good, eh?
23:30Yeah, I don't know, mate. I'm bloody a bit stumped.
23:34Another failure risks putting their opal mining partnership
23:38on shaky ground.
23:40I really don't know, mate. Maybe I've got to come down.
23:43I'm running out of ideas,
23:45unless I'm sort of down there looking at it, you know?
23:48I wasn't real keen on, you know,
23:50climbing 50 foot of ladder with only one shoulder working properly.
23:56Sometimes you've just got to get right there and hands on.
24:01I was a little bit trepidatious,
24:03cos you've got 50 feet of ladder, you've got to climb up.
24:07See you at the bottom.
24:09Go on, mate.
24:10I really didn't want feet coming down the hole.
24:16Climbing ladders with one hand is just so dangerous,
24:20but you've got to do what you've got to do sometimes.
24:29Oh, yeah. See if we can get this thing fixed.
24:36OK.
24:38Look at that little plug.
24:42It's obviously blocking an oil path.
24:46So if we take it out,
24:48maybe it'll let the flow through when the lever's on, mate.
24:52Well, I wouldn't have seen that.
24:54Oh, no, you wouldn't pick that.
24:58You'd hope all our problems weren't this tiny little part,
25:01wouldn't you? Really.
25:03Well, we'll just try it, I reckon.
25:05We'll just put this hose back in.
25:08Righty-o. We're going to fire it up.
25:10See if that fixes it, eh?
25:20There we are.
25:25Oh, that's good. That is good.
25:27Bloody river.
25:29Bang. The wheels are spinning around, spitting up dirt.
25:33Sam can manage that digger by himself.
25:35He can manoeuvre it.
25:37I don't have to be underground there with him.
25:41Nice and easy now.
25:43It's nowhere near as jumpy as it used to be.
25:46Beautiful. That's good, mate. Well done.
25:53The end of their season is only days away,
25:56but Sam, this load needs to contain opal.
26:00Hoist coming up.
26:02It's costing me more than I'm making,
26:04and you just can't really ignore that fact.
26:10One single load of good black opal
26:13could turn their season around.
26:15Could be a million-dollar spear round in there.
26:19Just starting to get a little bit of colour in the black.
26:22Right in here. Oh, yes, OK.
26:24In Grawen, the Tunnel Rats are also on the hunt for rare black opal.
26:29If I could find five grand or ten grand, I'd be stoked.
26:33If that starts to make, I might even get my bit of black opal today.
26:39I've got a bit of black opal.
26:41I've got a bit of black opal.
26:43I've got a bit of black opal.
26:45I've got a bit of black opal today.
26:48That's nice.
26:51Oh, beauty. That's got good colour on the...
26:53I think that's partner.
26:55Yeah, well, that's a stone. Yeah.
26:57That's good dark potch.
26:59And you've got a colour bar sitting on the top of it.
27:02It's running around to about here at the moment,
27:04so there's probably a good...
27:06I don't know, probably seven, eight-carat stone in there.
27:09Phew! Yeah. And that's got good orange.
27:12That's your black opal.
27:14Yes!
27:16Knew I was going to get it.
27:18After opal tore their family apart
27:211,500 kilometres away in Minterby,
27:24this black opal might be their chance for a new start.
27:29That's a fairly big piece.
27:31It's not red. Oh, hello.
27:33It looks like red on black from my angle.
27:36Well done, Maz. That one's got a...
27:38That's pretty good luck, man.
27:40To go from one field to another and all of a sudden be on opal.
27:43You can't pay someone to do that. It just doesn't happen.
27:46But maybe I've brought some luck with me.
27:48Bloody hell.
27:50It's the best bit of opal I've seen for a couple of years.
27:53It's got every colour in it and it's thick and it's clean.
27:56You don't see this every day.
27:58I'm really hoping that this could be it.
28:00I'm hoping, if all goes well, this is where I'll be.
28:04Reasonable-sized stone.
28:06That one's huge. Oh, nice.
28:09Yeah!
28:12You after a black stone?
28:14Yeah. There's more there.
28:16It's going back. Yes!
28:18That's what I think. Yes!
28:20I've got more in my hand, too. Right on the black, too.
28:23Oh, that's red. Bloody hell, Maz.
28:25You've got the red and orange, which is a very, very rare colour.
28:29I'm pretty happy.
28:31Whoo!
28:33I definitely could live here. The opal's beautiful, mate.
28:36I can't wait to see what they actually look like rubbed up.
28:39I'm holding my breath.
28:41I'm thinking I hope that they just come out the way they should
28:44and if we do, we could be talking a few grand.
28:46Don't put numbers in your head. No, we don't put numbers in our head.
28:49If we get any more than 50 bucks, we're happy, aren't we?
28:52Well, that's it. Game's played.
29:00Well, we're up the top of this hill,
29:02so we can look over the whole valley,
29:04see if we can see some of those big fault structures,
29:07some of those changes in the ground.
29:13In remote outback Queensland, Cole Duff is on the hunt.
29:18Oh, beautiful.
29:20Mining mate Ron Benny has hired him to find new opal sites.
29:26As payment, any opal he finds, he keeps.
29:31It's good to get a good overview of what's going on,
29:34where everything's sitting.
29:38Those faults coming in, they're sort of separating the two places.
29:42There might be opal in the creek,
29:44because it's fairly deep ground, eh?
29:46You'd have to do a few test holes there.
29:49Definitely there's some good areas to drill
29:52that haven't been looked at very much.
29:59Let's go for a walk around and see if we can see some stuff on the surface.
30:03Cole's 30 years of experience hunting opal
30:06has taught him to spot surface clues
30:08that could indicate an opal-rich area underground.
30:13You get the sun to your back
30:15and you've got the best chance of it reflecting at you.
30:20Oh, hang on, here's a nice bit of colour here.
30:24It's a nice purple bar.
30:26It goes all the way through the rock,
30:28so you can just see purple along there and green.
30:32That might be a nice stone.
30:34Chinese love purple.
30:36If you find one, you might find some more.
30:39Yeah, it's a nice green,
30:41but beautiful laser-beam green.
30:44I think they're good cutters.
30:47It's the edge of the level.
30:49She's just come out on the surface,
30:51and there's knobbies lying everywhere.
30:53That's not from a backer or anything.
30:55That's just naturally where the levels hit the surface.
30:58It's a shallow dish of opal.
31:02With a good opal area pinpointed...
31:04Yeah, now that's beautiful colour.
31:06..Cole can return to Ron with the good news.
31:23Righty-o, ain't ya?
31:27See if there's any gems.
31:29Over $25,000 short of their target,
31:32Pete and Sam are banking everything
31:35on their last load of the season.
31:38At least I can do this one-handed.
31:40Yeah, that's it.
31:41In the tail-out room,
31:43Sam's future in opal hunting is riding on this one load.
31:47You can only live in this world if you're pulling out some gems,
31:50and if you're not, you've got to go back to reality a bit
31:53and go and get that 9-to-5 job.
31:57Oh, there's a bit there.
31:59Nice black pod. Any colour in it?
32:02I can't see any colour in it, but that's all right.
32:04Bit of good trace.
32:07All we need's the opal now, that's there.
32:10There's lots of trace in here.
32:12Yeah, little bits and pieces, bit of grey podge.
32:20Yeah, look, look.
32:23Any colour in that one?
32:25Not that I can see.
32:27Not from an initial glance.
32:30The key to opal is colour.
32:33No colour, and the stone will be worthless.
32:36I reckon we just put it on the wheel, mate.
32:40A full spectrum of rainbow colours,
32:43and the stone could be worth $30,000,
32:46saving their season and their partnership.
32:49There could be a nice gem in here,
32:51we just don't know until you rub it.
32:53Windows of colour just rolling there.
32:58But I think we're going to lose everything,
33:00we're going to have to go through them.
33:02It's like teasing you that there could be more,
33:05and it just...
33:09There's a knobby there that had a little bit of potential,
33:12could see a little bit of colour in it,
33:14but it rubbed down to nothing, worthless, no money.
33:17What have we got there?
33:19Yeah, pretty ordinary total out.
33:21Not much at all, mate.
33:23Didn't turn into much.
33:25Really?
33:30With zero opal from their final load,
33:33Pete and Sam's total for the season remains at just $24,000,
33:38not even enough to cover their costs.
33:41I don't know if I can keep going like this, to be honest, mate.
33:45I don't know whether I'll be able to do it another whole year
33:48with just finding that stuff.
33:51I understand what you're saying, mate.
33:53It's costing us a grand a week to mine,
33:55to, you know, dig it, cart it, wash it.
33:59Probably just need a bit of time to think about
34:01what the next step is for me.
34:11He's saying now he's not sure if he can keep going,
34:14and I can understand that.
34:16It's a big financial commitment.
34:18He's a young bloke, he hasn't got anything behind him.
34:21He's got his future to think of.
34:24I moved up here with a little bit of money,
34:27but by the time I bought myself a camp
34:30and been mining for two years,
34:33there's not much left in the savings account.
34:36I go way up what's best for me and Corinne
34:40and what's going to put me in good stead for the future.
34:43If that's to give up open mining, it is what it is,
34:46then that's a decision I've got to make.
34:55It's decision day for Sam
34:57as Pete leaves for his shoulder operation.
35:05So, young fella, you've been home, had a bit of a think.
35:09What's the verdict? What are you going to do?
35:13Um...
35:15Yeah, I reckon I'll stay on another year.
35:17I reckon we can go around again.
35:20In the ring for another swing, mate.
35:22Yeah, I reckon. Ah, good. Excellent.
35:24Hate to give up on those two seasons.
35:26I reckon we can give it another go and see how we go, I reckon.
35:30Hopefully next season we pull out some gems
35:33and, yeah, keep everything ticking along.
35:36I've decided I'll give it one last season.
35:40We've found enough opal to keep me encouraged
35:43that there could be some more down there.
35:45Next truck might have a million bucks in it.
35:50I think we're hoping for 50 grand of cover costs, but halfway there.
35:54So, yeah, we'll have to look on it as a cup half full
35:57instead of half empty. You've got to be positive.
36:00I'll give you the keys to the city, mate.
36:02Excavator, truck, shed.
36:05If you can keep that, as you're ticking over for us
36:08for the next couple of days, washing down.
36:10Well, you go get cut and shut. Absolutely, mate.
36:13Good luck with it all. I'll give you a ring tomorrow.
36:15Come back stronger than ever. That's it.
36:17I'll give you a call, see how it all went.
36:19All right, mate. All right, mate. Safe trip.
36:21Bit of trust in this, but that's good.
36:23It just shows that we are partners.
36:28The keys to Cook City.
36:30It's not a bad city to have the keys to, actually.
36:39CAR ENGINE REVS
36:49Yeah, we had a good day today.
36:51Cole Duff's Outback survey has come to an end.
36:55He's identified potential new sources of opal
36:58on a massive Outback claim.
37:01We narrowed down a bit of a shallow show.
37:04If they were interested in, you know, chasing some shallow stuff,
37:07they'll get something there.
37:09These fog structures that we can see just now on this image,
37:13they're massive.
37:15You can see how that's a really strong bit of movement.
37:19Yeah, I think they'll find this stuff useful.
37:22So, yeah, we'll make up a data package and give it to them.
37:27There we go.
37:29Time to report back to claim owner Ron Benny.
37:33Hey!
37:35Hey, Cole!
37:39So, how'd it go?
37:41Yeah, goodo.
37:43Put the drone up in those places that you pointed to
37:46and got some really good shots of all three places.
37:49You can see where the level's coming out.
37:51I've got a USB stick for you
37:53with all the aerials and information on it.
37:56Thanks for that.
37:57Really clear.
37:58You can see those big fogs coming through each way.
38:01Might be some ground in between.
38:03That's it for tonight.
38:04And, yeah, no, really appreciate it once again.
38:07Anyway, thank you very much.
38:08Good on you.
38:09Yep.
38:10And I'll talk to you.
38:11OK, no worries.
38:12Cheers.
38:13Cheers, eh?
38:17Well, there's our little haul of rocks.
38:20So we might better cut some stones.
38:22As payment for his work, Cole keeps any opal rocks he's found.
38:27Maybe half a dozen nice cut stones.
38:30Some of it's very flashy.
38:32I don't know what we'll get until we saw it up.
38:35But I can see some potential in some of it.
38:37There's some beautiful purple.
38:39And they're big bars, so they'll go from side to side of the stone.
38:43I'll have to do a bit of work to value out it.
38:47This is boulder opal in the rough,
38:50mostly green and purple in colour, weighing about 5 kilos.
38:55$300.
38:57It's not bad for a walk in the paddock.
38:59For Cole, opal mining is about much more than just money.
39:04When you do see really good opal, it's exciting.
39:07It's an emotional stone.
39:09It flashes so many different ways.
39:12This magic-looking bunch of rainbows bouncing around
39:15with laser beams and little squares and hexagons.
39:19Very satisfying when you, you know, find good opal.
39:22That's really rewarding.
39:24But it's not easy.
39:26But because you love it, well, you just keep doing it.
39:37700km to the south in the opal field of Grawen.
39:42We've got these bits here, guys.
39:44These are some of those other bits that we had in the wall.
39:46We'll go through, clean them up, clean the edges, see what we got.
39:49See what we got, yeah.
39:51After losing their claim and home in Minterby,
39:54Baden and Lees are relying on this find to help them decide
39:58whether to make Grawen their new home or keep moving on.
40:02I've got no home. I've got no camp.
40:05I've got nowhere to live.
40:07I need to start finding opal.
40:09I'm raring to go.
40:11Have crack and definitely a new future, hopefully.
40:18The good thing is it's a nice stone and the good thing is it's clean.
40:21I'd be just happy to leave that as it is at the moment.
40:23It's still quite nice.
40:25That's a pretty good-sized stone.
40:27You're looking at, what, a 10-carat stone there, Muz?
40:29Yeah, we'll weigh that up in a minute,
40:31but that's going to be a 10-carat stone without a doubt.
40:33Yeah.
40:35We've got all the stones pretty much rubbed now.
40:38Muz is just finishing off on one of the last ones,
40:41and then we're going to put a valuation on what we've got for the day.
40:47At the end of the day, there's 65 carats.
40:49It's a mixed bag.
40:51A couple of black stones in there.
40:53That stone there in the middle, that's the black stone.
40:56That's 3.9 carats.
40:58You could almost take that out and put a thousand carat on it.
41:01A thousand bucks a carat for that.
41:03Bloody hell.
41:05There's some crystal.
41:07There's some paler stones, but they've all got different colour.
41:09They're all clean-faced, so they're all sellable.
41:12There's a red stone there. That's a beautiful stone.
41:14That is beautiful, yeah.
41:17Their haul is a mix of crystal and black opal.
41:21It's rubbed with a weight of 65 carats, or 13 grams,
41:26with colours of blue, green and highly prized red.
41:3165 carats.
41:33If we go out and ask for 6.5 grand straight off the bat,
41:36I don't think you're going to have too many problems.
41:38There it is, man. That's awesome.
41:40Well done. Well done, honey.
41:42For their half share,
41:44Baden and Least will net at least $3,000.
41:48I'm actually stoked for a couple of days.
41:51You know, $3,000, that's pretty damn good.
41:59Yeah, I'm pretty happy to stay.
42:02The April's beautiful, mate.
42:04Just go up to the dump and have a bit of a stretch around.
42:08Yeah. Well, you get a bit of a bird's eye view of everything.
42:14Yeah.
42:23Did you ever think that you'd like opal mining so much?
42:26Do you want to keep on mining with me?
42:28Yeah.
42:29Would you marry me?
42:31What, is that a proposal?
42:33It is.
42:34Really?
42:35Will you marry me?
42:36Really?
42:37Really.
42:38Are you kidding?
42:39Leastie Gray, will you marry me?
42:42Yes.
42:52It feels like a new beginning.
42:54Yeah.
42:55Everything felt right, so I want you to be a part of my life.
42:58I can't live life without you.
43:00You're fantastic.
43:06I do love her, yeah, heckin' or not.
43:09She loves opal.
43:15Cheers to new beginnings, honey.
43:17Yeah, for sure.
43:19Let's find some more opal, eh?
43:20Yeah.
43:39Money.
43:45Money.
43:50Money.