Thievery, skullduggery and greed still come hand in hand with the instant fortunes and astounding luck. But now thieves are well equipped with night-vision goggles, all terrain motorbikes, advance field communications and close access to attorneys. The modern opal miner is using high tech tools as well. Giant cement mixers with endless contrivances of rumblers and conveyor belts process opal dirt and the sound of a cell phone can be heard ringing amidst the din of the giant agitators. The outback has a great remote areas phone system so fax machines are found housed in tiny tin huts nearly lost in vast expanses of desert country terrain.
Solitary miners post charts on the pricing of opal next to their dust-caked phones.
They stare into that fire with the same dreams as their predecessors and console themselves with its warmth during the innumerable times of disappointment as did the old-timers before them. So many eloquent authors, historians, novelists, and poets, have recorded these deeds and legends. Patricia Shaw, a contemporary Australian writer is all of these. Some fact, some fiction, but all recreate for us the miner's lot. All show the hold that opal, the Queen of Gems, can have.