Outback Articles

Lucky Tourists $20,000 Richer After Weekend At Lightning Ridge

More and more tourists are flocking to the opal mining town of Lightning Ridge in Northern New South Wales, after South Coast couple - the Cerrones discovered opal worth a whopping $20,000 at the Visitor Information Centre noodling area.

The local Visitor Information Centre offers a "noodling area", where tourists can pan through metres of opal dirt in search of their very own gemstone treasures. Most tourists are lucky enough to find pieces of potch and colour to show off to friends and family. But for Mary and John Cerrone, their luck makes the most worthy of opal miners cast a green eye.

After watching an opal cutting demonstration, Mary knew just what to look for and spent Saturday afternoon fossicking on the mullock heaps. Mary caught what is known in the industry as "opal fever"

More and more tourists are flocking to the opal mining town of Lightning Ridge after tourists discovered opal worth a whopping $20,000 at the Visitor Information Centre. They returned early Sunday morning to take advantage of the bright early sun to try specking again.

After a short while, Mary discovered a stone that appeared to have some colour, so took it to local jeweller, Jo Lindsay of Lost Sea Opals. Ms Lindsay polished the stone and exposed a magnificient 14.92ct gem red on black opal and another red opal weighing 5.78ct. Together the stones are worth around $20,000.

The story is typical of the nature of opal mining. Regardless of the amount of technology and earth moving machinery, while you need preparation, a good eye for detail, success of an opal miner is largely due to luck. Local opal miners, provide the dirt for the tourists to "noodle in" and unfortunately for one local miner, one man's trash, is another tourists treasure!

The Cerrones are now celebrating their new found fortune and vow to return to Lightning Ridge to try their luck again.