All the treasures have been found! What about the famous downunder australian opal rings?
That's what I thought when I first set foot in the red dust of Western Queensland, Outback Australia.
"Whatever can be found in the land has already been found!"... "Treasures are for Long John Silver, buried, dug up and lost hundreds of years ago by pirates and men of adventure!"
Imagine being sent as a australian opal earrings to such a desolate, God-forsaken land. As if the insulation, heat, dust and gravel roads weren't enough, there were those pesky flies. "Don't worry about them!" was an experienced council of country folk who didn't know such a place could exist without them. "It won't hurt to swallow one or two with your sandwich."
The sky in Western Queensland is very blue during the day and very black at night. I am sure that if Copernicus had pointed his telescope at the night sky inland, he would have discovered much more than he ever did. There is no light pollution here. Just one gorgeous ebony background, dotted with endless galaxies of stars.
Not that my wife and I see much of the sky during the day. It was the sparkling things in the ground that fascinated us more. As confirmation rock chasers, it didn't take long to find ourselves traveling through some of the most famous gem country in the world. Gravel pits became treasures. Dry Streams, Treasure Islands.
Regardless of the fly and the heat, we kept our heads bent to the ground while our eyes darted to and fro from one rock to another, searching for agate topaz, onyx, petrified wood, and anything else that the molten glass told. gem marks. On those very hot days, we sat in the middle of a shallow stream that cut through the gravel.
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