Noodling
The machines that help dig potch (the white/pink stuff under which opal hides) out the ground are called noodling machines. Here are some at work. The mining outfits here are plenty and small - commonly family units of father and son, sometimes the mum too, all physically in there having a go. It costs about AUD$50,000+ per year to buy the machines and sustain the permits needed to mine a 'claim', and sometimes no money is made for years. Then one day, someone hits the jacjpot - literally digging up a claim worth anything up to several million dollars' worth in one go. Thats when the rest of the town hears and some jealous miner folk go moonlighting on other people's claims to steal their finds - which is why most miners, if they come across opal, just stay on the claim until it is all dug out of the ground, otherwise they have to bowl in with their guns and shot stealers out of their holes. No joke.
Aboriginal settlers arrived on the continent from Southeast Asia about 40,000 years before the first Europeans began exploration in the 17th century. No formal territorial claims were made until 1770, when Capt. James COOK took possession in the name... ... read more 
