Shakespeare called it the queen of gems, and in Poland they used to think it could cure eye disease. It's been credited with protecting people against suicide and acting as a good luck charm against poison. And in South Australia they take the gem very seriously.
It's a little known fact that 95% of the world's opal comes from Australia and from one tiny Outback South Australian town in particular. Coober Pedy is 850km north of Adelaide - and since opal was discovered there by European settlers last century, thousands of amateur miners, many of them women, have flocked to the area to try their luck.
Sharon Mascall meets some of the women miners. |
