Welcome to my home buried on Mindat.

Rocks are like people- sometimes the ugly ones are the most interesting. I concentrate on collecting Western Australian specimens. For various reasons there is a lack of photographs on Mindat for this region, and while none of my specimens are high end, they often represent little known locations for collectors in North America and Europe. You will also find specimens here from other areas of Australia, as I have found it hard to contain myself to simply my own State.

A collector needs rules, and my one is to only collect one of the species from a particular location, even if I see a better specimen later. Love the rocks you have. There are so many locations in Western Australia, I need to do this simply for space reasons. I enjoy researching the rocks and locations as much as finding them.

About half are purchased to keep local dealers from starving, and the other half are self fossicked. My trips take me into remote parts of Western Australia, with few people, water, or luxuries. I sleep on the back tray of my truck in a sleeping bag, with the stars as my ceiling. Showers are a bucket of water poured over my head. Food is usually dried fruit and nuts. Cooking food on these trips ended when a gas bottle exploded when I was leaning over it. Yes I am very hungry, dusty and smelly by the time I return.

In one sense, its the perfect hobby for where I live, as Western Australia is one of the most highly mineralised regions in the world, and covers an area the size of western Europe. This appears little known overseas. I have spoken to mining professionals overseas who are not aware any mining takes place in Australia, let alone it is the major industry here. Look around you, there are bits of Australia close by- the steel you see stands a good chance of coming from iron ore in the Pilbara; the aluminium about a 16% chance its from bauxite a few kilometres from where I live; coal that runs your power station possibly from Queensland; most Rare Earths and mineral sands in mobiles and electronic equipment come from Western Australia; the gold in your ring; the diamond in the ring about a one third chance it comes from the Argyle Mine here and so on.

In another sense its a difficult hobby as most areas here are leased. I try my best to avoid them, and most large mining companies are probably not going to be worried about a piece of quartz when they are after iron ore. However, I ensure I never take a metal detector, do any digging, or pick up anything valuable. Photographs of my self fossicked rocks probably wont impress, but it is sometimes difficult to know if you have wandered onto a lease, so it has to be this way.

I have always been interested in the hobby since I was taken to Queensland as a 7 year old, and fossicked for opal. However, it was only three years ago I took the hobby seriously, and in that time have amassed 600 specimens. I am now facing the problem of where to put them all, but uploading some of them onto Mindat is a good start.