Report from the road: Opal hunting in White Cliffs!

Opals are rare valuable stones. They've only been discovered in Australia, nowhere else.

There are honeycomb coloured ones, milky ones, and clear colourful ones.

[Polished Opals right]

Pineapple shaped ones can sell for $60,000. In the 1800s, opals were first found in White Ciffs just laying on the ground.


[Pineapple opals to the left, including an extremely rare triple]

There needs to be sea to carry the minerals needed to form opals. Looking at all the dry red earth and small shrubs here, it's hard to believe White Cliffs used to be an open sea millions of years ago. It's 1,017kms inland from Sydney.

[The beautiful hills around White Cliffs. The sea used to cover here. Beware of global heating.]

While the earth is soft, there are some hard rocks (granite I think) which are out of place. These rocks came from Antarctica! Some are tens of kilos. Some are as big as a car. They were broken off by glaciers, then carried by ice bergs into White Cliffs on the ocean. It's amazing to think of Plesiosaurs swimming around and ice bergs floating in from Antarctica here.

[Right: a Plesiosaur found in Morocco. These also swam in the ocean above White Cliffs]

Many fossils were turned into opals. We saw opalised sea snails and wood. There is a skeleton of a Plesiosaur found intact and turned into opal: you can see it here:
Watch this quick video of the opalised Plesiosaur from the ABC.

Opals can still be found in the piles of dirt around the town, and you can dig around as much as you like. Digging in the dirt is free. Just be careful: opal is like glass and easy to crack in half.

[Left: noodling - digging old waste dirt piles for opal]

[Right: on a tour underground to find out how local privateers mine today.]

There is a world leading solar farm here est. 1995. They use mirrors to bounce an area of sunlight into one point. Water is heated to steam which powers an engine to generate the electricity.

[A parabola shape is used to focus the sun onto the point in front.]

[Right: there is an array of solar dishes. Very advance for the time.]

White Cliffs is so hot in summer that some people choose to live underground. Miners dig out looking for opals, then you just need to coat the walls, and move in the furniture! Be careful not to dig into someone else's home though.

[Left: you can tour this very stylish underground home, called a dugout. These are 20 deg C always, while above ground can be 40 plus.]

 [A bedroom in the same dugout.]

[Living underground is not for everyone, but here it can be a lot more comfortable than above ground.]









We had a GREAT time in White Cliffs.

To see more, watch the Back Roads program from the ABC.