Rainbow Serpent Opal

The venomous serpent was in hybernation and only five feet away from our feet. We had jackhammered the floor of my mine and found that it was the roof or the old timers mine. and the snake was hybernating in the tunnel. We two sheilas tried to talk our selves into believeing that he was The Rainbow Serpent of Aboriginal legen and was there to guar all the opal we were going to mineout of this pocket. HAH! We filled in the hole leaving room for the snake to slither away down the maze of tunnels in that mine when the weather warmed up. But Lo and behold! We mined an opal with a gem center of pure opal (these are so desireable see blog on Gem centered Yowah nuts) and the center was framed by ironoxides that looked like a large serpent complete with head on top. His body wrapped around the gem opal center. Well that one had to go on the cover of my new bookzine (magazine like book) Fire in a Plain Brown Wrapper that will be for sale on my webiste www.ParchedEarthOpals.com in a few weeks. Some stone are so distinctively different that they get a name. Mine is Rainbow Serpent of course.