Rainbow Dreams
Love of opals is in the blood for Immo and Louise
July 14, 2006
Immo and Louise Stein's is the quintessential Aussie love story, complete with a giant rainbow set next to the Bruce Highway for all the world to see. The owners of Opals Down Under at Palmview have led an extraordinary life in which they have travelled the world, found love in a pub called The Tucker Box near the South Australian opal fields and are now comfortably ensconced on the Sunshine Coast for their semi-retirement.
Immo emigrated to Australia from Austria when he was just 21. After a stint working on the Snowy Mountains Scheme, Immo went bush and arrived in South Australia's Andamooka, hoping to find his fortune. Immo said he used to go to the pub about once a week for a decent meal.
"But when Louise started there, I was going to the pub every day."
Within three months the couple became engaged and they married within the year.
But it was in Coober Pedy that Immo's love affair with opals truly blossomed.
"There was nothing else to do in Coober Pedy. So I started teaching myself how to cut," he said.
Louise had also come to love the business of mining and cutting opals, saying it was like "gold fever which gets in your blood".
For Immo, the mining was more about the challenge.
"You can get a rough piece of opal and you will never know what you are going to find inside it," he said. "It's a sense of achievement when you find the opal."
The success of their home business gave the couple the confidence and the equity to make their longed-for move to the Sunshine Coast in 1985 when they set up Opals Down Under, situated near the Ettamogah Pub.
"We have gone from mining the opal, to buying and cutting the opal and then on to selling them wholesale," Immo said. "The next step was moving into retail."
Louise explained that Opals Down Under meant they were able to build the business around their family. "Absolutely this is where we are staying," she said.
Source: Coolum and North Shore News