Yowah Opal Fields and Eulo.

We departed Quilpie on Saturday morning, bound for the Yowah opal fields. What a desolate, dry and uninteresting place. Camping on the town common complete with free hot showers (artesian) and very clean toilets was one of the highlights, the other being Gail's opal find.
After settling ourselves in we walked about 1km to the public fossicking area where we scratched around for about 1/2 hour before Gail literally tripped over her opal bearing rock. Another 2 hours was about all we could handle in the hot afternoon sun. We had intended to stay there on Sunday also so that we could attend their weekly open air opal trading market on Sunday morning. However at 11am Sunday we learned that the market did not start until after 2pm so we decided to hit the road.

The lovely little town of Eulo was the next place we came to as we headed toward Cunnamulla and civilization. We saw a very extensive boulder opal collection in Eulo at the general store. The stones had all been polished and contained magnificent traces of opals in a variety of spectacular colours. Prices were fairly high for any that really appealed to us. The opal miner there also owned the general store and spent considerable time polishing and setting his opals.

Kevin and Gail.
View a small sample of our trip photos at:
www.picasaweb.google.com/kevinh055