Roma Qld. July 12th 2023

 

Roma Qld. July 12th 2023

Before we hit the road today I took an early morning walk up to the artesian bore spa and a had a bit of a soak in the 40°C mineral laden water. Supposed to be good for all manner of kinds of complaints. Always busy, night and day. It's free and you just walk in and jump in the pool. Quite refreshing given that the air temperature was about nothing. I also grabbed a great snap, looking back up the road toward the spa, with the sun shining through the steam coming off the spa and blanketing the road.

Steam and fog from the artesian bore spa. Lightning Ridge NSW

But then we had to leave and tackle the 420km run up through Hebel, Dirranbandi, St George and on and on up through Surat and on to Roma. Pretty straightforward but a bit tiring. Quite pleased to pull into the Big Rig Van park and have a bit of a chill out.

Lightning Ridge Day 3 July 11th 2023

 Lightning Ridge Day 3 July 11th 2023

A day doing not much, just wandering around.

Found a decent coffee shop, The Bumble Bee or some such, run by the people who had the other one out on the main street last time was here

Poked our noses into John Murray’s Art Gallery, ticked of all the ones we had, added some more to the collection...

The Ghan. Artist : John Murray, Lightning Ridge NSW
Should have bought this one as well... Next time!

Visited the Walk in Mine, which is just a walk in ... and out, checked out the layers of sandstone and opal bearing siltstone, watched the video, watched another video, perused the shop. 

Judy on  the jack-hammer. Walk in Mine, Lightning Ridge NSW

Visited some real opal shops in the main street, one had really nice settings and mostly proper solid opals, with a solid price tag, the next had almost ok settings, lots of pieces at more reasonable prices, and then there was the original one. The jewellery pieces look like they are the originals as well. Most of the opal on display is doublets and triplets, which are basically rubbish, lots of said rubbish cheaply priced for the tourists and a few good stones on display for the punters to gawp at.

After lunch we had to round out the car door tours, by doing the Red CDT and the Yellow CDT. The biggest change is that Amigos Castle is now totally obscured from the street, so if you want a snap you have pay to go in and look. Done it twice already when it was free, so thanks but no..

The other big change is that the faux church used in some totally forgotten film was blown away a few years back by a mini hurricane. We couldn’t even find where it had been. Maybe it fell into the old open-cut pit on Lunatics' Hill?

Lunatic Hill open-cut mine. Lightning Ridge NSW

Lighting Ridge NSW Day 2 July 10, 2023

 Lighting Ridge NSW July 10, 2023
Just Rustic, Bardo Station, Lightning Ridge

If yesterday was more of same, today was out of this world.

We had asked at the info place about anything new in town and they had told us of this fairly new tour. It's a museum of 'old things', hence the Rustic name, located out on a farm 30km north off town.
A nice easy run of about 30 minutes over excellent dirt and gravel roads takes us out to the station.  The driveway leads to a clearing where there is a large shed and a few old cars and trucks, and a helicopter. It's not really a proper helicopter, just one the owner Robert Turnbull made up out of bits 'n pieces laying around the place. Just for fun. Actually he made it up, called his neighbour, who was struggling with the effects of the drought, and told him he had a new helicopter. The neighbour hot-footed over straight away and when he saw it, laughed his head off. Mental health treatment 101.

Helicopter, Just Rustic, Lightning Ridge NSW

Robert entertained us for an hour or so as we sat around a huge fire pit, as he told us his family history, the history of the land, the rivers, the climate. You name it, he spoke authoritatively about it.

Then we had a session of divining for water using two wire rods, ostensibly from the overland telegraph wire. First extensive instruction with astounding results followed by a practical session which had me laughing away to myself. Water Divining may or may not be a real skill, but funny as hell to take part in, and I suspect more of Robert's home-brewed Mental health Plan.

We went next to the new shed. And we started to get an inkling that Robert wasn't just another collector of old junk, this shed is full of stationery engines and pumps and stuff, all in, "100% fully working order", or even "as new". Quite a few of these pieces were family heirlooms, or came from the original owners, or had been used by his father for a hundred years. And they all were perfectly clean, and indeed, fully functional. The centrepiece was a Wolseley (same as the car) engine. His story was that it had been build by the Wolseley Sheep Sheering Company in England as one of two specials that were both sent to Australia. The other has never been seen since, and so this one is claimed to be the only one in the world. Wolseley was founded on the back of Frank Wolseley's inventions of mechanised wool-shearing while he live in Australia.

Extremely rare Wolseley Engine, Just Rustic, Lightning Ridge NSW

Back in the main shed, we had an extensive tour of everything from pumps, to spanners, and sheep shearing stands to bait laying buggies used to help exterminate rabbits. There was so much stuff my head began to spin. And everything had a story, which made it personal, entertaining and informative. Roberty made it clear that quite few items had been bought at auction or on eBay or the like. He just likes collecting interesting things, especially of they form part of a story and go with other "things" he has.

There was also a long, very long, table covered in tablecloths and laden with strong hot tea in teapots complete with knitted cosies, and plates of piping hot scones, straight out of the wood fired oven. With jam and cream, of course. And all served on proper crockery with silver spoons. What a treat.

While we ate he entertained us with poetry he had written, further tales of farming and all interspersed with the odd yarn.

A spanner. Not just any spanner but one from a Massey Ferguson Tractor. look closer, you'll see the marking that were used to 'dip' the petrol tank and see how many gallons of petrol were left.  Just Rustic, Lightning Ridge NSW

But wait, as they say, "There's more".

And indeed there was more, a lot more. Right behind us the wall turned out to be one of three 40ft containers that held a mind-blowing collection of things, way too diverse to list or describe.

After 4 hours we had finished the tour. My head was spinning with facts and figures. My mind was racing back through the tales he had told of his and his families lives in the 100 something years they had been farmers, and river-men, and advocates for farmers, and lobbyists and social workers and ... who knows what else. 

If you ever go to Lightning Ridge, do yourself a favour and get on this tour. It doesn't run all the time, depends on the roads and the weather and farming chores, but of it is on, grab it.

This last snap sums up the collect. We've all seen egg-beater mixers, even have one or used one back in the recesses of time. But has anyone ever seen a stand for one? I know I hadn't!

Egg-beater stand.  Just Rustic, Lightning Ridge NSW

Lightning Ridge July 9, 2023

 Lightning Ridge July 9, 2023

Easy run up from Armatree, through Coonamble to ‘The Ridge’. Road no worse can last time, maybe better in places, although there were plenty of “80 kph, Reduce Speed, Rough Surface” signs. Not that you could tell the difference. At one stage we amused ourselves by taking snaps out the window of the mirage you always get here.

Mirage, somewhere south of Walgett

Lightning Ridge doesn’t seem to have changed any: favourite coffee shop has gone, another one has opened around the corner. My old house on the corner seems even closer to collapse, but apart from that, nothing much different.

Been snapping this old house since 2011

We approached the Info place to see what was new around town to find that there was a new tour, a bit out of town, so we booked that, and the ‘old lady’ whose house we toured many years ago was back, and open for tours again, so that’s a starter as well.

To finish off the day we cruised out to the Ridge proper to watch the sunset. It's still setting, so that’s not changed either!

Sunset. Awwwwww........

Lightning Ridge NSW 17/18 July 2019

Lightning Ridge NSW 17/18 July 2019

This is our fourth visit to the Ridge, just a quick two-night stop-over, mainly to catch the tour and show put on by Mel and Susie, the bush poets we first met in Winton ten years ago. Before I mention the Mel&Susie tour, I have to say that the road from Coonamble up to Walgett and on to Lightning Ridge is still rubbish. Looking back through this blog, it's been that way since our first trip here in 2011. Even though it is sealed, you could use this as practice for the Gibb River Road and travel at 20kph for the 240k.

The tour.

We were picked up from the van park at 630pm, just 10 of us. Mel and Susie moved to the Ridge about 5 years ago, when they bought the 'camp', as houses are called, which was set up by John Murray, the famous local artist. The tour started with the girls giving us an hour long show of material all about Lightning Ridge and its inhabitants, which was very entertaining. They followed this with a tour of the old 'house', which was made entirely out of recycled material, as were most thing on the fields. One of the favourite materials used is wine and beer bottles, of which there seems to be an over-supply, I can't imagine why! They followed this with a view of the new house, which having been built after John Murray started to sell a few bits and pieces, is made from new material and is very comfortable. One of the things about this town is that the houses are kept looking like junk heaps from outside, but many are very nice on the inside.

Backside of a bottle wall. Lightning Ridge NSW

Dinner was served outside as we sat around a campfire, which was showing some blue and green flames, as the star attraction. We were told we were eating stew with dumpling, but in the pitch black one couldn't tell, however it was quite delicious, As was the something and pineapple pudding served up to finish.

Weird fireflames.. Lightning Ridge NSW

Today was a bit of a slack day, our highlight was yet another self guided tour following first the yellow and then the red car doors, cunningly placed all those years ago by the same John Murray, who can claim to have started tourism in the Ridge.

Coopers Cottage. Lightning Ridge NSW
This one is as crook on the inside as out!

A big hole. The first open-cut mine on the opal fields. It started out as standard holes dug down to the opal bearing dirt. As it was an additional 60 metres down, on top of a hill, it was rightly called Lunatics Hill. Then they just dug one big hole and were done with it. Lightning Ridge NSW

One of many quietly rusting to death in the scrub. Lightning Ridge NSW

Like most things here, it is anything but what it looks. It was built as a movie set for the  film Godess of 69. Lightning Ridge NSW

Bit of junk lying around. A small motor winds a laden skip up from the  bottom of the hole, up and over the top and dumped into the waiting skip. Lightning Ridge NSW

I meant to add these before we left this morning, but time got away on me as I went for a wander up the road to the Artesian bore spa pool.

The steamy environ of the 40C artesian spa where I had my meeting with my very own spook.
Lightning Ridge NSW

One other thing that I have noticed out here in the scrub is that a certain ancient technology is literally being resurrected to support the newest of technologies, the NBN. It made me smile to see this cable being connected to all the camps that pride themselves on being off-grid.

Old meets new - telegraph poles and the NBN. Lightning Ridge NSW

Lightning Ridge NSW 25 July 2017

Had a quiet sort of morning, read a book, had a swim or two and sat in the sun for a hour. I could get used to this.

In the afternoon, we took ourselves over to the 'real' opal fields, which are 60km to the west of Lightning Ridge, past Cumborah, past Grawin and onto Glengarry and The Sheepyards. We did this last time we were here and enjoyed ourselves, but this time it just felt like a waste of time. The first 30km of road is good bitumen, and as long as you stay on the alert for sheep, cows, goats, dogs, alpacas, emus etc, it is an easy drive. Then there is the 30km of dirt road, opal mining debris really, which was quite rough.

We resisted the temptation to take the short detour up to the Club-in-the-scrub, which is a tin shed masquerading as a Golf Club and at which there is nought to do except buy overpriced drinks. One could play golf I suppose, but that's not us.  The next attraction is the big mullock heap, and yes it's big but not as big as say, the one in Norseman in WA, and besides, it's just a pile of white dirt. They say that you can 'noodle' in this pile, but the chances of you finding anything are much less than that of being run over by the next incoming dump-truck, which is unlikely, if you stay away from the obvious 'road'.

Further along you come to The Sheepyards War memorial, which is a kind of nice thing to have done and worth a stop for a look, I even took another snap.

War Memorial. Sheepyards, NSW

On then, to the Glengary Hilton. Having seen the converted container and tin shed masquerading as a hotel, we neglected to take that short detour as well,

Finally, we arrive at The Sheepyards, the hotel to be exact. This time they didn't have any food left at all and the barman / hotellier fought against all his principles and reluctantly came to sell us a Bundy Ginger Beer each at $3.50 a pop, before retiring to his seat and his cronies with a dismissive wave of his hand. The opal in the rough they had on display is just a bit of colour, totally worthless, as is the rest of the junk they have lying around. I felt like taking him literally when he said 'knock yourselves out', meaning if we wanted, we could look at all there was to see in his establishment, which wasn't much.

Outside, apart from what appeared to be a new set of toilets, was the same old phone-tree and the same tired tractor. I took snaps, as we wont be back, and we scat.

Dead tractor. Sheepyards, NSW

The Sheepyards Hotel. Sheepyards NSW

Old Sydney Red rattler, Sheepyards Hotel, Sheepyards NSW

Phone tree. Sheepyards, NSW

And what's with the old trains from Sydney? There are at least five in Lightning Ridge. One would have thought it would be heaps cheaper to buy a proper kit bunkhouse specific to your purposes than to buy one of these rusted out contraptions, transport it way up here and then try and convert it to something useful.

Anyhow, having felt underwhelmed by the welcome, we did indeed return to the van park, where we were very welcome indeed to take part in another Mel and Susie show, swim in the heated pool, sit around the campfire, take a spa, and generally enjoy the rest of our stay. Which we did.

Lightning Ridge 24 July 2017

Today we did the Lightning Ridge car door tours. There are four trail, each one marked by a series of car door painted in that trail's colour: red, yellow, blue and green. One surprise for us was that they want you to give them a dollar for the info sheet, which was ok I guess. One thing that was not a surprise was the rudeness of the woman in the Info Centre, as they were just as unhelpful and rude 3 and 6 years ago. Maybe it's their idea of fun: annoy and ridicule the tourists who come in at the rate of 5-6000 a month.

I was going to present a pictorial coverage of the trails, but as it turns out, most of the explanations of each numbered door simple said to move on to the next door.

Anyhow here's a few just for fun:

Red door tail. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Highest point on the ridge. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Yellow door trail. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Yellow trail. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Lunatic lookout is a ledge at the top of the hill. The Three-mile mine area is at the bottom of the hill, and when some hardy souls decided to go up the hill and dig down, by hand, the extra 60ft to get to the same seam, they said they were Looney, hence the tag Lunatic Hill. Today it is one large open cut mine that cleaned out anything that the old-time diggers missed.

Lightning Ridge, NSW
Faux church erected for some totally forgotten B grade movie 

Lightning Ridge, NSW

Lightning Ridge, NSW
OH&S has even caught up with the bears nailed to the trees

View from top-of-the-ridge looking west. Lightning Ridge NSW

No visit to Lightning Ridge is complete without a visit to the '2nd most unmissable attraction in NSW' aka The Chambers of the Black Hand. Which is one man's 20 year's worth of carving statues into the sandstone layer above the opal layer. We've been here before and it's changed a bit: there are more chambers, more carvings, no guided tour of the actual mine part, and they've whacked the entry fee up. But interesting enough, so a few of the carvings I haven't put up before

Chambers of the Black Hand. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Chambers of the Black Hand. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Chambers of the Black Hand. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Chambers of the Black Hand. Lightning Ridge, NSW

We made it back in time to catch another Mel and Susie show, which was even better than yesterday, and then we went and had a dip in the hot spring. H-O-T being the operative word here, it must have been 40+ and you just couldn't stay in more than a few minutes at a time.

We finished the day sitting around the campfire and swapping a few travel tales with our fellow drifters.

Lightning Ridge, 23 July 2017

    Another freezing night in downtown Dubbo. No problem, today we head north to Lightning Ridge. We are pleased to report that Warrawillah still exists and we said hello in spirit to the Mortimer clan as we flew past on our way to ‘Gil’. Through the town and out along the road, past Gulargambone with its stylised corrugated Galahs and real-life emus. We have never seen so many, one near the road had a heap of chicks as well. We stopped for a break at Coonamble, and enjoyed ourselves by getting the chairs out and sitting in the sun in the local park with our cuppa and a piece of cake. Apart from the herd of cattle eating their way up the long-paddock and the distraction of sliding through Walgett, possibly the most distressed town in NSW, the rest of the drive to The Ridge is uneventful and we arrived at our park in time for a late lunch.

    One of the reasons for coming here was to see those great Australian bush poets. Mel & Suzie, who abandoned Wilton in Qld for a new home here in Lightning Ridge. The show is on at 4:30. They tried the usual evening slot but found that nobody came back once they had gone to their vans for dinner. Anyhow the show was good, not as good as the Winton ones perhaps, but pretty entertaining none the less.

    While Judy whipped up a potato pie for dinner, I went for a swim in the heated pool, much to the surprise of those all rugged up in their puffer jackets and beanies in the adjacent camp kitchen.

Loafing about the 'Ridge

Some of us got up early and went for a spa at the natural spring just up the road. Others had to be coaxed out of bed, but then I got to go twice!

Went back to John Murrays art gallery and just had to buy a couple of prints on canvas as well as an ordinary print that the man himself signed for us. Just love his work.Wandered about, bought some rubbish as well as anzacs and raspberry slice at the surprisingly big market and even went on an organised tour in the arvo, just for fun. It was the cheapie tour with the worlds loudest, most self opinionated guide (actually he might not be) who really wasn't fussed about the tour as there were only 4 on board his 20 seater bus and it was Sunday and all. Anyhow, despite hie and the Whiners, we had a good poke about some stuff we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Finished the day with a coffee at the cafe d'wheels and then a good old noodle on the mullock heap at the info centre where, just last week, according to the guide, a lady found a squillion dollar opal etc etc. We found nothing but had a pleasant time anyhow, until it was too dark to see.

A few snaps i guess:

Not a church, a film set for Goddess of 1967

Typical view of opal country, and bore... 

Amigos Castle

The Grawin, Sheepyards, Glengarry.... NSW?

These places don't actually exist on yer satnav, they are opal mining fields west of the 'Ridge. West of Camborah actually.

This was our destination today, to explore the real opal fields (the ones in town worked out 20 years ago, but the town stayed on and grew). The first place is the Club in the Scrub, a 32 hole golf course, just don't expect to see anything green except gum leaves. It is at a field known as The Grawin and was here in 1968 when me and me mate took our gap-week after finishing school.

Further out you come to the Sheepyards, well actually you come to the War Memorial first and 'Lake Beard', then you get to the sheep yards proper, which of course isn't sheep yards anymore, but they do have a decent enough pub complete with train carriage, and wait....markets! The markets were a 3 stall special put on especially for the long weekend.

We had a homemade 'pie' here, which looked a lot like a round waffle, but tasted okay.

Then we hopped over to Glengarry, to 'The world famous Glengarry Hilton', there words, not mine. Its just an old shed and a bar and a trailer/kitchen but they do sell pretty good meals.

They too had a market thing of sorts, over the road at Sweenies, put on just for all us visitors. Nothing really for us, the opal bits looked interesting, but as nothing was price marked, you felt like they were sizing you up, dollar wise, before you asked the question. We fooled 'em, took up all their time chatting about opals, failed to ask the obvious question and then left empty handed.

Stopped to look at the huge piles of mining rubble and found a few horses lazing about under a nearby tree. One turned out to be a baby Clydesdale and was 'cute', another turned out to be just a bit too nosey, wanting to stick its head in the car window.

On the way back we stopped to admire the 18 metre high emu made of old VWs, the latest addition to the Lightning Ridge cultural collection.

The last snap is a picture of 'Uluru' we had the van park artist stick on the side of the truck.

Some snaps:

3rd hole green

first stop on the opal fields pub crawl. we had diet coke!

better not try and rat on his claim

coming into sheep yards. second on the pub crawl

beer garden!

entry to the war memorial

and now for the markets

a couple of hamburgers in the sunshine

No, not really, it's the reflection of one of the tents next door!

Stanley looking towards Birdsville