Michele Bravo Playing With Fire Chapter 30

Black opal

It was time to go to Lightning Ridge, where the opal mines that Jan Janasz and Alain Pretorius supposedly had, were.

Michele had long been interested in opal, particularly black opal, nad Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, is the main source of it.

Most Americans never see the best opal - buyers from Asia purchase it and have it made into jewelry to sell in the Orient.

90% of the opal in the world is ‘light opal’ -- opal with a white background. 8% is black opal, and only 2% is boulder opal.

The town of Coober Pedy in South Australia is a major source of opal. Indeed, the world's largest and most valuable gem opal, “Olympic Australis” was found in August 1956 at the “Eight Mile” opal field in Coober Pedy.

Andamooka in South Australia is a major producer of matrix opal, crystal opal, and black opal, but the main source of black opal is at Lightning Ridge in New South Wales. Black opal has a predominantly dark background (dark-gray to blue-black displaying the play of color). Boulder opal consists of concretions and fracture fillings in a dark siliceous ironstone matrix.

Michele had selected Lightning Ridge as the location for the denouement of her game with Gus Keller. It was very much a "frontier" town, like the old west, except that most of the homes in which people lived were underground.

Lightning Ridge is about 6 km east of the Castlereagh Highway, and has a population of about 2,000 people. It is a flourishing tourist town, however, with plenty of caravan and camping parks, the Diggers' Rest pub (which, according to Michele's info, was in the process of being rebuilt after having recently burned down for the third time) and a bowling club.
Boulder opal

It was there, in that wild-west atmosphere, that Michele would bring her plan to fruition.