Barbara McCondra is wearing the white shirt and the Yowah opal mining sweat bandana. Opal historian Barbara Moritz is the bejeweled one. We are having a fizzy cordial (a carbonated version of kool aid) in opal miner Johnny Kovac’s camp. Johnny is the featured miner in Rena Briand’s book Coober Pedy White Man in a Hole written in the 1970s. Johnny has been mining in Yowah for many years now. Moritz is an author and opal field historian from Lightning Ridge New South Wales. Read on for the bushies’ Christmas part.

Out of range of the camera lens (you’ll just have to take my word for it) are yards of gossamer cobwebs that Johnny had spray painted silver for the Christmas holidays. That is festive decorating Yowah opal field style! Happy Holidays, Mate!