Australia is world-reknowned as the location for precious opal. And while most opal is found by professional miners, a lot of “noodling” takes place, in which the amateur comes on the scene - with permission of the landowner, and searches for opal (without using tools). He or she can take any opal that they discover. This costs nothing
Tourists can go to Denio, Nevada, USA to do noodling as well, although of course in the United States it isn’t called noodling. It’s called fee digging. And it does cost $50 a day (although children under the age of 12 are allowed in free). In Denio, the place to go is the Bonanza Opal Mine.
To find out the times that they are open for such fee digging, call the appropriate phone number:
May 20th - September 30th — 775-941-0111
October 1st - May 19th —-864-597-1421
Here’s a bit of history from the site:
In 1954, Glenn and Bea, and Keith and Agnes Hodson purchased the Bonanza Opal Mine from Mrs. Lockheed’s grandson and Mr. Mark Foster. One warm morning in 1973, Keith Hodson was scraping the surface of the Bonanza mine in preparation for some fee-digging customers due that day, when the blade flipped up what he originally thought was an empty beer bottle. Climbing down from the bulldozer, he was surprised to find that the “bottle” was actually an Opal weighing more than six pounds! Officially named The Bonanza Opal, it was filled with brilliant flashes of fire.
The mine has changed hands many times.
It was purchased by Lloyd Olds and Dick Leger in June of 1988 and became a corporation in July of 1992. The mine is now owned by the holders of 100 shares.