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Published at 8th May 2018
Modified at 4th Jan 2023
Opal Fields Memorabilia Coober pedy 1973
Old photos just found from Rons original trip to Opal Fields of south Australia in 1973
Today it would be many people dream to travel the aussie outback and camp out each night under the stars
When Ron finished his outback trip in 1973 he truly had the opal bug and than went to Lightning Ridge in NSW and mined opal there and to this day his son Chris also is in the Opal Industry and has operated many mines at lightng Ridge.He now trades on opalauctions as as Opalrush
Images above taken in November 1973 show opal dealers on side road a s opal market selling opals as rough in jars or polished. As some images are of cooked matrix we assume these images were at Andamooka or Cooper Pedy
Ron made camper van set up out in his Valiant car and would simply pull over each night in the Australian outback. One image shows the Stuart desert pea abeautiful desert plant with flowers red colour that looks like pea.
These opal mining images look like a few of the opal mines that he visited
Opal mining was still active in White cliffs around this time
Images show bottle house made from precious beer bottles and they did keep the temperature down but many spiders ,including deadly red back would make their home in a bottle.
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