Chomping at the Bit

I wanna get outta here! Australia round trip can cost from 1300 to over 2000 coach. I need to find a ticket for less,Uusally it costs 200 more to stay for three months before returning.I have a little 1988 Mitsubishi with friends in Brisbane. It is the boxy hatchback type that when I lay down the back holds my generator, jackhammer, picks, sledgehammer and buckets for mining Yowah opal. (not anymore...I wrote this a year ago on another blog and since then have hit an emu and demolished both hatchback and emu) Great gas mileage and that''s good Australia has had petrol at 2.50 and 3.00 per gallon since 1983 or so. I am afraid to ask what it is now.I prefer Air New Zealand as the stopover in Auckland for two hours is a refreshing break from the 14 hour flying time trip. People tell me of wild deals where their round trip cost them only 600 dollars....if you are flexible on times for leaving and arriving. I am so flexible I tend to step on my head in airports. Really am gnashing my teeth nights thinking of all that opal laying in the ground waiting for me to jack hammer it out. Getting to where I cant stand it. Good thing I am visiting the grandkids. they are the only treasure that can detain me...for a little while anyway.To see what I do and why I do it go to www.ParchedEarthOpals.com or www.outbackgems.com

"I hurt in the dirt As I flirt with Lady Luck More for the love of opal Than the chase of a buck" To see what I do and why I do it go to www.ParchedEarthOpals.com or www.outbackgems.com

Outback Australia Anonymity

Outback residents often are known only by their nicknames. When the subject of what their real names are comes up, the nosey one who dared ask such a "sticky beak" (nosey) question gets the head tilted, squinty-eyed answer, "Whadya wanna know for? Don't ya know everyone's ere to be anonymous, running from sumpthin!? If ya value yore skin, I wouldn' go around asking, Mate."Some nicknames the owners knew about and others were snickered at behind their backs. I had one for a fellow who used to sit quiet for hours just sucking down beers and saying nothing to anyone with a brooding, hard thinking face half hidden from view.. And all of a sudden, he would growl out something horrifically vulgar and suggestive to a passing female. My nickname for him amongst family and very close friends was Smoldering Smut.If you want to know more about what I do and why I do it go to my website www.ParchedEarthOpals.com or www.outbackgems.com

Aussie Opal Miner With A Lived in Face

This is a page in my Smoke Gets in Your Eyes an Australian Opal Field Cookbook that I have written and stored in my computer. Mal was a f riend in the first year when I first hit the opal fields in my two thousand dollar fox vest (hey I had big pipeline paychecks) and my one carat diamond "friendship" ring, 200 dollar snakeskin boots, Gloria Vanderbuilt LEvis with a hundred dollarsilk blouse and feathers in my hair.(Iused the feathers for courage to drive the icy snowpacked Arctic Haul Road while working on The Alaskan Pipeline)BIG MALA ginger colored curl lay over his ruddy furrowed brow accentuating his receding hairline. The ginger (Aussie for reddish) was repeated in his thickly flared mustache and stubble chin. Referred to occasionally as Mal with the Lived-in Face, he more often wore the mask of a clown mimicking Johnny Ray or Elvis for the entertainment of his grog-swilling mates. An intelligent, opinionated mind lurked behind his dust rimmed, bloodshot, baby blues. He delivered his bigoted and barbed wit in a basso bushman mumble. In an instant he could put nearly physical power into a snide remark then, wearing the standard bushman's costume of short shorts and singlet, lightly mince and prance its hurt good-naturedly away. He was fun and a good friend to have as long as you never crossed him. He made his own rules and changed them at the drop of a hat. He had great legs. To see what I do and why I do it go to my website at www.ParchedEarthOpals.com or www.Outbackgems.com

Carrots and Bullets

After rattling through her double locked doors, she tossed her backpack into her rocking chair and flicked on the computer. She couldn't get out of her gear fast enough. Levis were feeling too tight these days and her bra cut into her back and could be tolerated for only so long. Another two weeks on a strict protein diet was in order. She lifted up her big couch pillows and pulled out her favorite lounge-around outfit, a grey and red striped pair of jersey pirate pants and grey tank top, that she kept stashed under the pillows. Comfortably attired she riffled through the vegetable drawer in the fridge for a handfull of mini carrots. Next came the handful of vitamin pills that were pre-counted and bagged in little plastic baggies. She kept the baggies in a golden yellow makeup pouch along with a handful of 357 magnum shells on top of the fridge. A quick cup of water and she had downed the collection of vitamins, Centrum Silver, even the name made her feel old: all silver-haired and a century old! Nell clambered onto her high well padded stool in front of the computer, popped a tiny carrot into her mouth and clicked online. She'd been working on a list of items she felt should be put into her "backpack for the homeless" backpack. To see what I do and why I do it, go to my website www.ParchedEarthOpals.com or www.outbackgems.com

Cartoon Me Aka Eskimo Nell
I cartoon and caricature the opal people and pipeline people I have worked with along with writing my snippets of personalities and exploits in the opal fields of Lightning Ridge and Yowah and Koroit. Since I had come from the pipeline of Alaska to Australia, the Lightning Ridge, New South Wales opal miners nicknamed me Eskimo Nell. The real joke was I didn't understand that there is a very nasty bit of poetry about her. My naievity made it all the more funny. They apologized to me later saying, "Ah Nell, we didn''t know you were goin to stay. We thought you was just a shiela shootin. thru." (but they were never really sorry) So tis my nickname and I''m stuck with it so I wear it proudly even today.( Hell, I can't get away from it anyway) To this day I feel I am two personalities and I draw upon each to get me thru the stuff of life. Some times the business woman Barbara answers questions one way and then my alter ego Eskimo Nell then repeats the answer with a bit more attitude. If I whimp out at times, I remind myself that Nell wouldnt be this way and the change in attitude amazes. If you want to see what I do and why I do it go to my website at www.ParchedEarthOpals.com or to www.outbackgems.com my son's website

Fear Happens in Lightniing Ridge & at Home

I was feeling a little fearful today...of my health, several family members life and death struggles with their health, what kind of country were my grandchildren going to inherit, my finances, the terrorism threats etc. It brought to minde when I was forty and first camping in Lightning Ridge, 3 kilometres out of town alone in the scrub. there were camps out there in the scrub with me but few and far between. I had fears then, and yet they turned out to be naught. I wrote about my feelings and circumstances one day back in 1984 and will share this bit-------Now and again something alive would scurry across the roof: a goanna lizard, a huntsman spider, and an animal that sounded like a cross between a pony and an orangutan as he leapt from the tree to my roof and galloped from stem to stern. He then used the water tank cover as a spring board to the ground. The latter nocturnal visitor was a large possum. I grew to look forward to these sounds as companionship and comforting. It was the furtive- sounding crunch of footsteps in the dark approaching my camp that stopped my noisy breath and started my heart booming like the guns of Navarone. Late at night on weekends was the worst; after the pubs had closed. Many a drunken shadow could be seen staggering through the scrub taking the shortcut home and ending up who knows where. Without a dog to validate the presence of an intruder, I was jumping and thumping at every scratch of twig on the roof of the bus and every groan and creak that the wind induced out of the old hollow box tree limbs. The limbs eventually snap and crash to the ground. That sound alone could finish off a strong heart in a jif. When I had to answer nature's call, I'd venture out away from my tin hut to the middle of the driveway (all the better to spot a snake) stomping my feet to send such reptiles slithering out of my path. There, squatting vulnerably in the middle of my circle of magnificent old trees, the faint light of a thin moon began to make familiar my surrounds, but the pitch black darkness that wrapped around my now piss marked territory always seemed to hide watching eyes. I never could shake the feeling that I was not alone. I learned quickly to, although afraid, after making routine checks and safety precautions, fall immediately asleep. I kept a hockey stick and a piece of pipe under my bed. . The camp by day always felt so friendly and caring and safe. It was a healing place in the light of day. Jenny Molyneux picked me up from the bus depot in the dark of the evening one year when I was returning after a three month stint in the USA. She dropped me off at the Pig's Hill camp, and exhausted I crawled into my dusty blankets, noticing that someone had at some time been using my vacant camp in my absence. Jet-lagged-tired I crashed immediately anyway.My bush warning device, hurriedly rigged before retiring, awoke me suddenly. It was the sound of the metal door grinding and vibrating on the gravel I'd strewn in front of it. It was a terrifying alarm. I was up with my flashlight and metal pipe in a flash screaming angrily , "GET OUT OF HERE! I'M BACK. THIS IS MY CAMP AGAIN." I watched an Aboriginal male retreat, more in tired resignation than in fear, from my camp and drive away in his beat up red truck. The adrenaline kept me awake for a long while.

To see what I do and why I do it go to www.ParchedEarthOpals.com and www.outbackgems.com