Not only miners but also an everyday person can be lucky and get to absolutely real mines. Tamborine Mountain was created in the volcanic eruption aproximately 22 milions of years ago. Since then there has been small air bubbles hidden deep in the mountain, they were trapped when lava cooled down.
The aboriginees named the mountain and it has nothing to do with the musical instrument. Nowadays there are mines on Tamborine Mountain where you can find those gas bubbles, that are called the Thundereggs. They usualy are round light-colored stones, that one can dig out of slightly softer ground. A legend from America tells that Thunder spirits were throwing Thundereggs at each other when angry.
When the volcano erupted those bubbles were filled with gas, but after some preiod of time they opened up and let some minerals in. The minerals cristalyzed inside the bubble, creating nice colorful crystals and forming jade, agate, opal and others. Unfortunately none of those could be found in Australia. But the thundereggs that could be found in Thunderbird park and mines look just as nice.
Before entering the mines we got our mining permits and safety instruction - not allowed to dig under big rocks and on slopes, allowed to take only 2,5 kg out of the mines or full bucket of rocks, must not go outside the fenced area, take off your shoes, etc. We got the buckets and dwarf pickaxes and up we went. It felt like we should be singing some dwarf songs about the hard work that awaits us in the mines, the excitement was high - about the real pickaxe and the miner's feeling.
"If you dig you will surely find something"" we were encouraged by the supervisor and we were ready to dig. Up on the mountain after passing many warning signs about the permits I realised that the mines are not underground, but open. At the shop we had checked what the thundereggs look like, and up in the mines we could already see parts of thundereggs and other not so interesting rocks.
After the first digging in the dry and hard clay it was sure that it won't be easy. We were chopping and chopping, dust flying everywhere, just as the small bits of the hard soil. We picked up some rocks trying to understand if they could be the thundereggs we were searching for. We made two piles of rocks - "perhaps interesting" and "surely interesting". All the rest was thrown further away. With time it turned out to be easier to recognize the gas bubbles in the other rocks. We dag our holes deeper, because it was clear that all the best thundereggs on the surface are gone, who knows how many people have gone over the mines before us. When we reached the small roots or the trees it was clear that we are in the area that nobody has dug before. We kept on digging despite the hurting blisters from the whole process.
The white outside of the thunderegg does not tell what's inside and we couldn't take them all. The deeper we dag the more frequent we found the thundereggs. SOme of the bubbles split up showing what's inside. We could see the big discoveries in the shop, but we couldn't put those in out bucket and the cost of cutting it would be pretty high. We tried to pick the pieces of the cracked thundereggs.
After few hours we were tired and realised that we can't go forever, so we started to wander around the mines. We found some rainwater in an older hole and started to wash our findings in the puddle. We washed off the white clay dust and picked the most interesting rocks out of our two piles.
One bucket was full with thundereggs and pieces of them full with crystals. We went to the lower level of mines and the soil here was not white, but green and flaky. Pickaxe made the small pieces of the gray stuff fly everywhere and I was happy, I still had my sunglases for the eye protection. Hair and pockets were all full with small stone pieces, that hurt when hit the face, but we were hopeful. The green layer should have been formed at the same eruption 22 milion years ago. We found some thundereggs here too and soon left the mines hungry and tired. Man in the shop picked the eggs he could cut and we picked few of them. The man dissapeared in the back room and soon came back with some nice pieces of thundereggs we had mined ourselves.
Colorful minerals mostly red and green looked really nice and made us happy. At home we still have a bag with thundereggs that are uncut and noone knows what's inside.
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