In my teens I had a strong interest in fossicking for gemstones. This led to gold panning and gemstone fossicking trips to Beechworth, Walhalla and other similar places,
In 1966 my cousin Ken and I decided we should try and find some opal as we had read about its beauty and the possibility of finding chips and small pieces rejected or missed by the miners at some of the older fields. After some study we settled on an old field called "Pride of the Hills" situated in Queensland west of Cunamulla and east of Toompine. We had no idea of what to expect but headed off in my Cortina sedan in September of that year. We took plenty of fuel, water and food to last the two weeks as well as picks, shovels and sieves.