Specialising in Qld Koroit matrix and boulder opal.
G'day from Richard and Lyn Cooper - a little bit of background - we have been married since 1975 and have two grown up children both with families of their own. We owned and operated a 7 days a week business 200kms west of Bourke in the outback of NSW for 20 years and sold out in 2005. We had been part time opal miners from about 1995 and decided to give it a go fulltime after selling our business. We now live simply but comfortably here on our mine, "The Shallows". We have to generate our own electricity with solar panels and diesel generator and cart water from an artesian bore 10 kms away.We live here for ten months of the year, only leaving in Jan/Feb as it is too hot to mine.We opencut with an excavator and backfill the mined areas as we go. We process all our own material here at the mine from sorting the rough to slicing and cutting and polishing the stones ready for sale. The matrix opal from Koroit is a truly beautiful and unique product and no other matrix opal in Qld matches it for it's pattern and colour.If you would like to see more of our day to day operation check out our blogsite at cooperskoroitopals.blogspot.com - go to the home page and click on the link.
This is a gallery of images from our mine. Simply click on the thumbnails to view a larger copy of each picture.
View of camp from the mulloch heap. View of camp from the mulloch heap.
Using the ripper. Using the ripper ("the Equaliser") to loosen up hard ground.
Drilling new ground. Exploratory drilling on the lease.
Mining on our lease. Mining on our lease.
Lyn breaking nuts. Lyn hard at work breaking open nuts to find the opal.
Another stunning sunset. Another stunning sunset.
Inside the cutting van. This is a view inside our opal cutting van.
Richard cutting pendants. Richard cutting pendants.
A beautiful Koroit sunset. A beautiful Koroit sunset.
One of the larger boulders found in our mine. One of the larger boulders found in our mine.
Lyn and Richard relaxing after a hard day mining. Lyn and Richard relaxing after a hard day mining.