The Opal Festival is a traveling opal show that is held in various outback towns across Australia's vast desert region from April to August.
We visited Lightning Ridge, the source of black opals.
The venue is divided into indoor and outdoor areas, but is very compact.
It seems that people from various fields, not just the jewelry industry, will enjoy traveling with this show.
There's no denying that things have become even more minimal during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the exciting feeling of the Opal Show has been brought back with it, with the scorching sun even in winter, the guitar-playing man livening up the festival, and the food trucks providing lunch.
As it is called a festival, there are a few souvenir shops inside.
From junk to exquisite souvenirs, the Lightning Ridge edition of Monopoly is based on the concept of getting rich quick with black opals, and all of the pieces are mining tools.
It was one that really moved me.
In addition to black opals, white opals and boulder opals are brought from distant mines, and most of the exhibitors are miners (mine owners) who gather at this show to sell their opals directly.
The outdoor tent mainly sells large items such as raw stones and stones that are ready to be polished.
Unpolished stones have a powdery texture and no shine, so they are often sold submerged in water to make it easier to imagine how the play of colors will appear after polishing.
Although I couldn't find any shell opals suitable for jewelry, I did find a large group of shell opals, which gave me some idea of the process by which shells become opals.
It had been a while since I last went shopping overseas, and I was very inspired.
