English experts thought they were fake! Nothing was further from the truth.

The year was 1886 and there had been seven revolutions of the sun since Toowoomba-based drover Herbert Bond had struck up a conversation in far south west Queensland with a station owner. During the banter the pastoralist said he'd recently found some 'peculiar stones'.

Darker when in shadow, these rocks took on a new life in sunshine - illuminating in an array of vibrant colours that shone in unmatched vibrancy.

Bond had heard about recent opal finds at Blackall to the north east, and knew immediately what the station owner had unearthed.

Purchasing the land on the spot, he started digging and over the next couple of years pulled tonnes of boulder opal* from that ground.

Armed with the best specimens, Bond teamed up with a Sydney mining and manufacturing magnate named Ebenezer Vickery.

An astute businessman, Vickery agreed to become Bond’s partner on the basis that the opals be taken to England for sale.

Agreeing, Bond organised for 4,000 Carats of cut 'Queensland Opal' to be displayed at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London. Electric in their beauty compared to the white milky opals of Hungary that the Brits were used to seeing, jewellers initially accused Bond of committing fraud by selling fakes.

That trouble was short-lived though, and soon visitors crammed into the exhibit. That gave Bond an idea...

In what must surely be one of the most expensive 'influencer' campaigns of all time, he took the finest pieces and had them set into an exquisite diamond-edged gold necklace, then presented it to Queen Victoria's daughter-in-law and the then Princess of Wales, Princess Alexandra. She was the Princess Di of her era and LOVED the gift.

With 'Alix', as she was known within her family, garnering compliments wherever she paraded her stunning necklace (valued at $1.5+ million in today’s money), Queen Victoria decided she too should get in on the action.

Bond was invited to Windsor Castle, where HRH chose numerous of the very best pieces.

That association turned him into a wealthy 'celebratory' in England, with his fortunes helped along by owning the only royally-granted mining lease in QLD at the time. With mines, an opal shop and real estate ventures, he became the first, but certainly not the last, 'King of Opal'^. Sadly for him, Bond's success was short lived, becoming bankrupt when the 1891 economic crash hit.

The upshot? Opals failed to make a lasting impression on the international market at that time.

Australia now produces 95 percent of the planet's opal. Prized the world over, uncovering these beauties is a huge buzz. So I highly recommend following in Bond's footsteps, taking the route now known as The Warrego Way from Toowoomba to Quilpie where you can still find opals.

The Quilpie Visitor Information Centre in Visit Quilpie Shire - Your Outback Adventure is a welcoming haven for both community and visitors. The small team play a vital role in helping travellers, supporting their local community and protecting their environment. You can buy opals at the Centre, plus there's an onsite Gallery and Museum.

A bonus: there's a new Quilpeta Night Show on a big outdoor screen where guests can relax in outdoor lounge chairs. It's a Quilpie Shire Council initiative.

Quilpie and its Visitor Centre are part of our #AlwaysAWinner campaign and finalists. Please wish them well, with winners revealed on March 8.

More info: Experience Outback Queensland, Australia

* Boulder opal is a type of opal that is still connected to its host rock, which is typically an iron stone. It's usually thin veins of opal. These are formed when silica-rich water seeps into cracks in that iron stone. The size of the silica determines the flashes of color that you see - smaller spheres result in blue, then slightly larger silica spheres create green and so on, all the way through the rainbow to the largest sphere, red. That's what makes red so rare and valuable.

^ He was followed a decade later by Tullie Wollaston, a young surveyor turned entrepreneur from Adelaide. Like Bond, he marketed the gem internationally. Unlike Bond, his success was long-lived. However, the person who deserves the 'King of Boulder Opal' title more than any other is Des Burton. Establishing a pharmacy in Quilpie in 1967, he filed a few claims, employed locals and started sawing, grinding, sanding and polishing at the rear of his pharmacy. By the 1970s he had introduced modern opal cut mining techniques which revolutionised the industry and secured the US as a key market. Yep, his 'Quilpie Opal' stores put the once sheep town on the map.

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