A miner's tale
By George Kountouris
[Sequel to "Down in the mines"]
[Foreword from Vic Midyett: We met George in his retail store in Coober Pedy, which he opens in the afternoons after spending the morning at his mine site. His wife and kids live in Adelaide, where they have another retail store. The Kountouris' website is called "Opal Now"; it is still under construction, with more product pictures coming soon.
Down in the mines
By Vic Midyett
[Sequel to "Looking around the town"]
We visited one of the opal mines that are open to the public. It wasn't in use anymore, but they try real hard to sell you the opals they have in their showroom. Their income depends on allowing tourists to wander around underground looking at all the corridors the miners made when hunting the gem.
Looking around the town
By Vic Midyett
[Sequel to "The opal capital of the world"]
We began to explore and found an underground Greek Serbian orthodox church dug out by the Greek community many years ago, probably in the 1950s, and, as we were given to understand, mostly built by Italians. It is still an active church:
The opal capital of the world
By Vic Midyett
My sister, Anita, was coming from Perth, Western Australia, to visit me and Shirley in South Australia, and we all wanted to see Coober Pedy, which is sometimes referred to as the "opal capital of the world" because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there.
