Opal Digging Diary 04 - Black Flag and noodling
A bit of digging, a bit of noodling
Nice early morning digging session, maybe 1 hour or so. Was about 5 degrees Celcius when starting and quickly warmed up and stripped off my jacket, beanie and buff! Angle of the sun makes it harder to see depth, so here's an adjusted colour version:
Looking like another session or two still, to get the trench all level under the soft stuff (and into the desired clean rectangle!). This morning was a solo dig, otherwise, it's a faster and easier with one loosening and digging the trench and the other pulling back the spoils up top.
After time on the trench at the Black Flag claim, I went with an old timer to a spot he wanted to show me for noodling. This is the fine material left after sieving - today, we used a 6mm square opening sieve. The are some amazing old timer men and women in Coober Pedy. They've lived through the town's booming decades, with plenty of interesting stories of goings on. Each tends to have their own spots where they think there's some opal, based on earlier finds or tips!
Until next time, when we keep trying to finish trench prep and start digging deeper - only about another 15 ft of hard ground to maybe find an opal level! I should be well fit by then!
