OPAL miner Graeme Downton said when he moved to White Cliffs shortly after graduating high school, he thought of it as a temporary relocation.
“I suppose I thought, I’ll just do this until I figure out what I want to do when I grow up,” he said.
Over 30 years later and with an elaborate five-bedroom dugout home built on the property, Mr Downton said he’ll be opal mining forever.
“I’ll be doing this for the rest of my life, opal mining,” he said.
Mr Downton runs underground opal mine tours, mines opals which he polishes and turns into jewelry and gifts, and runs a cafe and shop, Red Earth Opals.
His dad was a hobby miner and he said his family would visit White Cliffs twice a year on school holidays.
“Dad got introduced by another guy to an older person who needed a partner to do explosives, and that’s what dad did,” he said.
“So he was the powder monkey for a lot of years.”
He said as well as it being affordable to buy in the town, he’d always loved White Cliffs since visiting as a child.
Despite not having much experience in building, he taught himself the skills required to build his home.
“Out here you have to be fairly handy,” he said.
“I mean, that goes with mining, that goes with anything you do. If you’re just going to wait for trades to come, you’ll be waiting a while.”
Mr Downton is involved in every part of the process of opal mining.
“We find the opals, polish the opal, we do all the opal work,” he said.
“So it’s all our own material.”
White Cliffs is the only location on Earth to produce pineapple opals, and Mr Downton has uncovered a few rare specimens while fossicking opals.
Through his shop, he sells opal specimens worldwide.
