We left Uluru and drove back to the Stuart Highway and then south to Marla where we set up camp.
10/9/2013 Mintabie
We drove the 35km to Mintabie opal mining town. The man at the general store told us that we could fossick anywhere and to come back at the end of the day and if we didn’t collect any specimens he would give us some.
After looking around another miner directed us to a recently vacated site and told us to noodle in the tracks made by the front end loader. We did that and found lots of colourful potch, which made us feel successful.
Later in the afternoon two other young miners allowed us to watch and assist with their noodling machine. They were running tailings from an old mine along a conveyor belt under a black light which allowed them to “see” the opal and extract it.
At the end of the day we returned to the store, bought an icecream each and, true to his word the owner generously gave us a bag of opal chip. That made our day. At dusk we drove back to Marla, saying that next time we are in the vicinity we will visit Mintabie again, and possibly camp there.
Too busy all day for pictures!!!
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