(Backup) Day Twenty-three - Lightning Ridge!

Well here I am, relaxing in the lovely air conditioned comfort of our cabin at Lightning Ridge with a cool adult beverage after Day Twenty-three of our holiday was spent exploricating in & around Lightning Ridge. For those overseas gals (or Aussie gals who may not be aware!) Lightning Ridge is famous as the only place in the world where black opals are found. It's an outback town with a character all of its own & in turn seems to attract people who are "characters". :0) Since we only had one day to explore here, we decided to take an organised half day tour with Black Opal tours ... If you're thinking of visiting Lightning Ridge, I can recommend this. Before I go on ... Have you got your cuppa ready to sustain you to the end of this post?? :0)

So ... Bright & earlier than theses night owls prefer, we were picked up from the caravan park we're staying in by 'Mappo', who explained that most people in "the Ridge" are known only by their nick-name & took us touring. First stop was a marker of the original point of settlement for Wallangulla, which then moved slightly & was called Nettleton, after the miner who first recognised the potential worth of the never-before-seen black opal ...

Very little remains of Nettleton after the town's name changed again to Lightning Ridge, except the old post office, which is now home to local miner "Soapy" & his aging blue healer, Hugh ...

It's a bit hard to see, but Soapy is sitting in the shade. Next stop ...

This was the largest open cut opal mine in NSW & the richest source of black opal ever found. (As an aside ... Lightning Ridge is full of signs written on old car doors & bonnets ... Recycling?!?)

The name originated in the first decade of last century when opal mining was concentrated on the flats. Some blokes decided to follow the ridge to the top of the hill & were dubbed lunatics because they would have to dig much deeper to get to the opal bearing level. They had the last laugh, however, finding the richer seam. By the 1960's it had been dug to the extent of becoming dangerous, but as mining methods improved, it was felt there were still opals to be found, so open cut mining started. There is no mining on this spot now. It shows how sometimes it pays not to follow the crowd. :0) Next stop ...

Fred Bodel's camp. A bit of a local legend, Fred came back to Lightning Ridge after the war & stayed until he passed away. He once met the Governor General who wanted to meet an opal miner when he visited Lightning Ridge. Fred agreed on the proviso that the Governor came to him, not the other way around. Fred actually found large amounts of valuable black opal, but continued to live in his camp, which was preserved after his death as a kind of time capsule ...

The kitchen ...

The bedroom/sitting room. These rooms were set up in two small corrugated iron buildings with a covered breezeway between. Nobody knows what happened to Fred's fortune in opals, but he sure didn't blow it on home decorating. :0) Apparently, like many of the old timers, he liked the simple life. We then climbed back on the bus to see a mining camp a bit different to Fred's ...

You're not seeing things ... There really is a stone castle in Lightning Ridge! :0) In fact we were told there are two, but the other is smaller & a copycat. This is Amigo's Castle & was built stone by stone by hand. Apparently, Amigo would come home after digging for opal each day with the back of his ute full of rocks & add to his castle. The rocks are ironstone so very heavy & each was placed carefully to fit snuggly. In fact, if he didn't have a rock that fitted neatly into position, Amigo would stop adding to his castle until he found the rock that fit. He doesn't live in the castle ... He just wanted to see if he could build one. I told you Lightning Ridge attracts characters! :0) 

On with the tour ... We headed underground into a played out opal mine. I commented to GB that we should be fonts of knowledge about mining, having been down a gold mine, a silver mine AND an opal mine during our holiday! :0)

Here's GB in his safety helmet going down the steps ...

Here's our guide, Mappo telling us about the mine. There was a lot more room to move than the silver mine we went down! We watched a video presentation about opal mining in Lightning Ridge before climbing to the surface again to finish the tour. 

After grabbing some quick lunch, we then took ourselves off to see a collection of opalised fossils ... Yep ... Fossils that have opalised. No pics, but they were very interesting to see & we heard how the local community is fundraising & lobbying government bodies to build a national opal museum here in Lightning Ridge. We'll have to come back to see it. :0) Our last stop for the day was one I was looking forward to ...

We visited the new gallery of local artist Jihn Murray. I first met John & was introduced to his quirky artwork when we lived in Bourke. He really has a knack for capturing the colours & feel of the outback & sometimes puts a humorous slant on life in the outback. You can pop over to his web site HERE to see what I mean. This mural in the lane beside his gallery will give you an idea ...

I love this! Wrens have a habit of thinking they're 10 feet tall & will take on anything & cows are incredibly curious but not very bright ... This just seems to capture the humour of the meeting to me. We were fortunate enough to find John at the gallery & had a chat & he signed a calendar for us, which was lovely. This gallery was only opened this year after John's previous gallery was destroyed by fire. I follow John's art adventures on Facebook & saw photos as the new gallery was built, so was extra keen to visit. And wasn't disappointed! :0)

So ... All in all, we had an enjoyable day in Lightning Ridge. We'll see one more attraction before we head off in the morning, as we couldn't see it today. We ran into a funny situation here, where most tourist orientated businesses in Lightning Ridge scale back operations during the summer months. This is party because it gets VERY HOT here (it was only 37 degrees today, so we hot-weather lovers were fine! Tee! Hee! Hee!) & some of the activities are uncomfortable or unsafe in extreme heat ... & partly because less tourists visit Lightning Ridge during the summer months ... See previous comment about high temperatures! :0) The catch for us is ... Lightning Ridge "summer" starts on November 1 & we arrived on ... November 1. So two of the main things we wanted to do dropped back from a morning & afternoon tour to just a morning tour ... & we couldn't be in two places at once. :0)

So that's it from your roving travel reporter for today. One more holiday report tomorrow & the adventure is over ... Neither of us is ready to go back to being grown ups ... BUT ... SIGH!! Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!

KRIS