"I think gold hunting would be a bit too easy, you can use machinery to find gold. There's something about the opal," he said.

Mr McFarlane and his family are among the new stars on Outback Opal Hunters.

The McFarlanes are originally from Sydney. Seven years ago, Mr McFarlane decide to become "a typical Aussie adventurer" and start a "treasure hunt" in Lightning Ridge.

"In the early stages we'd just come up and stay and go backwards and forwards. We still owned a property down on the coast. Eventually, I said I just need to stay. I was getting depressed leaving the Ridge," he said.

It wasn't just the opal hunt, but the amazing friendships that motivated the McFarlanes to stay.

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The family started out with the basics - jackhammers and a rickshaw. With each find, and consequent pay out, they upgraded the equipment.

The computer engineer-turned-opal miner says he has loved every minute of the adventure.

"Treat it like fishing if you will. You enjoy the doing but you don't always catch a fish. If you do they wouldn't call it fishing, they'd call it catching. Opal mining is a bit the same, that's why we call it mining and not finding," Mr McFarlane said.

"It comes down to the thrill of the adventurer in us and the treasure hunt. And just the love of doing what you do. My grandfather always said 'do what you love and if you make money out of it, that's a bonus'."

But for anyone wondering if it's a lucrative endeavour, Mr McFarlane said they would simply have to watch the show.

"An opal miner never reveals his secrets," he said.

This is the fourth season of Outback Opal Hunters. The show was a "plus all round" for both Lightning Ridge and the mining community, Mr McFarlane said.

"From that we're seeing the tourism has increased, especially out of the European countries. If you talk to the guys who drive the tourist buses, there are a lot of people who have made it part of their bucket list to visit Lightning Ridge after seeing the show," he said.

Opal is Australia's national gemstone and the miner said there was nowhere in the world that had better black opals than Lightning Ridge.

Season four of Outback Opal Hunters starts February 6 on the Discovery Channel.

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