Danielle Lancaster & Peter Quattrocelli, Rare ‘Yowah nut’ opal discovered in outback Queensland to be displayed in national museum, ABC Western Qld, 10 March 2024

• In short: A rare and precious opal from outback Queensland will be kept in Australia after being acquired by Geoscience Australia.
• Dave Darby discovered the Yowah Moon Opal in 2020 at Brandy Gully, a mine site near Yowah in western Queensland.
• What’s next? It will be placed on public display at the Geoscience Australia Education Centre later this month.

Most opal miners only ever dream of their eureka moment.

So when Dave Darby sawed through the ironstone shell of his unusually heavy find in Queensland’s outback four years ago, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

The size of an avocado and weighing almost 400 grams, the shimmering flashes of blues and greens were almost blinding against the brown casing that had hidden this rare beauty for who knows how long.

“I was just in shock, just froze for a while,” Mr Darby said of his discovery in October 2020.

The opal Mr Darby found encased in stone is known as a “Yowah nut”.

It’s a rarity found only around Yowah in Queensland’s far south-west, which is closer to South Australia than it is to Brisbane.

‘Dreamtime stone’

Mr Darby named his discovery the “Yowah Moon Opal” for its round shape and spectacular beauty, which he compared to a full moon in the clear outback skies.

Digging that day on his late father’s mine at Brandy Gully, on the outskirts of Yowah, he had good reason to feel hopeful.

“As I dug in, more and more ‘nuts’ came, and most were carrying colour,” he said.

Opals are a valuable commodity around the world, but to Mr Darby they mean something more.

“It’s a very spiritual stone, like a Dreamtime stone and it belongs here in Australia,” Mr Darby said.

“It’s a connection to the Mother Earth here in Yowah.”

Mr Darby’s father was an Austrian migrant who arrived in Australia in the 1950s. His mother was an Aboriginal woman from Lawn Hill, near the Northern Territory border.

After falling in love in nearby Doomadgee, his parents headed south to Yowah and began searching for opal — a tradition he continues.

Yowah artist and retired opal miner Eddie Maguire said the Yowah Nut opal type was formed during the Cretaceous period.

“You’re looking at between 65 and 135 million years ago,” Mr Maguire said.

“This was all happening through the time of the dinosaurs.”

From the outback to the nation’s capital 

Mr Darby could have sold his Yowah moon opal for up to $200,000 to the highest bidder anywhere in the world.

Instead, it will go on display later this month at Geoscience Australia’s museum in Canberra, a decision Mr Darby believes will enable his family’s legacy to be remembered.

Chief scientist at Geoscience Australia, Dr Steve Hill, said he was speechless when he first cast his eye on the stone.

“The quality of opal we are looking at here and the colours of that sample, that in itself just engrosses you,” Dr Hill said.

The federal agency sought funding from the Australian Government National Cultural Heritage Account Funding program to purchase the opal for $100,000.

It will be housed in the Rocks That Shape Australia collection in Canberra.

The team at Geoscience Australia also appreciated Mr Darby’s wish to keep the opal in Australia and make it publicly accessible.

“It’s our role in safeguarding that sample for Australia to ensure it stays in Australia and can be seen by all Australians,” Dr Hill said.

Mr Darby will attend the unveiling in Canberra before returning home to the outback to do what he loves the most.

“This will be a very special moment in my life,” he said.