Lost in Lightning Ridge!
On a recent outback trip to south-western Queensland, our return to the mid-north coast of New South Wales offered a couple of route options. At times, I’m all for taking the shortest, fastest way home, but often prefer to take in an extra few sights along the way, especially when it involves a town like Lightning Ridge.
Driving west through Bollon and into St George, Qld, we decided to hook a right, heading south to Dirranbandi (still in Queensland), then into Lightning Ridge, NSW, for a brief stay in the local caravan park before zig-zagging our way south-west to our home on the mid-north coast of New South Wales.
The highlights of The Ridge (hey, let’s call it like we’re locals, eh!) are many, to the point that about a week’s stay would keep most people amused at checking out the quirky destination and its people. For us, we had a day and two nights to spare with our kids, so taking in just a small handful of the iconic outback town highlights would have to suffice – for now.
To me, opals and hot artisan baths are the region’s two most well-known tourist attractions. Then there are the artists, of which there are many in number. We opted for the widely known and regarded John Murray, who has amusing cartoonish/realistic depictions of Aussie animals, people and their discarded cars, machinery and humorous long-since-used equipment. Oh, holidayers with caravans in tow make a grand appearance in his artworks.
While I’m no art connoisseur, I did walk out with an armful of prints to be framed and hung in my house. I admit to grinning when I walk past, stealing a glance at each artwork. They are feel-good works, for sure!
THE GREAT ARTESIAN BASIN
We all learnt about the natural hot water in our school days, well… didn’t you?
Being a Moree lad, I grew up with the town’s public hot baths and a selection of more natural settings of the steaming hot water piped into dams, with the long tail of water slowly cooling its way above ground. Perfect for selecting just the right spot and temperature for a dip. The Ridge Bore Baths are an open-air facility, originally built in 1962 and have undergone a few upgrades to make it a beautiful and relaxing haven for an evening soak.
The 40 to 46-degree hot, mineralised water is ideal for soaking away any aches and pains you may have, but be aware of not only the initial heat of the water but also the cumulative effect on your body over time. It’s advised to cool down from time to time, along with repeated short swims or soakings in the healing water, rather than one long stint.
As an aside, the runoff water is now piped and used within the opal industry and some parts of agriculture, keeping in mind the salt content excludes some usage. That piping consists of about 170km within the local area, which prevents wastage from evaporation and seepage, compared to the ‘good ol’ days’ when much water was wasted, causing soil contamination from the natural minerals and attracting the scourge of feral pigs.
For me, floating around the steaming water was an ideal way to end a hot, dusty day in an arid landscape devoid of much greenery, waterway or wetlands. The facility was basic but well set out and maintained, and I’d highly recommend all visitors experience the wonders of these magical waters.
LIGHTNING RIDGE IS OPAL COUNTRY
No visit to Lightning Ridge is complete without wandering the main drag or various outlets scattered about the region to peruse the mystical forms of opal. The other ‘must do’ in the region is to delve into the depths of the earth into a dugout, either a house or a commercial establishment.
Given our limited time in The Ridge, we combined the opal and underground marvels into one, including some awe-inspiring talent, hard work and ingenuity of the underground mine at The Chambers of the Black Hand opal and sculpture tour.
Back in the 1980s, a hopeful opal miner realised he’d chosen the wrong plot to strike his riches from the fiery stones of Mother Earth, so he swapped his attention to tourism and started his opal tours, along with the initial chipping away of his amazing carvings deep underground. Fast forward a few decades, and the carvings boast a vast array of worldly scenes, humorous and serious, with no character – real or otherwise – left out.
Somehow, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, along with characters from the Avengers, Minions and Star Wars, stand side by side with ANZACs, Australian and worldwide fauna, old-time miners, biblical depictions, Buddhas and the Delhi Lama. Somehow, it all works perfectly together and provides hours of viewing and fascination as to how one man could have possibly completed the large-scale, larger-than-life sculptures.
The accompanying mine tour shows the hard-working and dangerous conditions old-time miners suffered, hoping to strike it rich with ‘a bit of colour’ from deep underground. The long hours on the muscle-aching hand tools and the far-from-ideal working conditions would surely take their toll on even the hardiest of fellas. Aren’t we lucky with the advancement in machinery and technology that we don’t have to endure the torturous ways of our past to make a quid?
Once the two separate tours have concluded, the showroom is available to peruse to your heart’s content, with many displays of opal on offer to purchase. There is everything from small opal trinkets for the kids to eye-watering examples of yearly-wage-valued rings and pendants.
A quick stop at a roadside opal noodling site provided more entertainment for our kids to have a go at fossicking, along with covering them from head to toe in light-coloured dust. Ah well, the dirtier they are, the more fun they’ve had, eh!
DON’T GET BITTEN
Given our time constraints, that’s all we could squeeze into our drive-through visit to Lightening Ridge. At face value, it’s a desolate, dusty, remote township with little else on offer, but there are plenty of other natural sights, galleries and tours to take in. Yes, it’s mostly centred around the opal and its by-products of tourism and the unique landscape of an extremely remote, hot and intriguing town.
Still, it’s here that you get to enjoy insights into a rare industry, hard work that has paid off for some, along with plenty of dirt, dust and quirky, imaginative people of Australia.
Just be careful that you don’t get bitten by the bug; the fossicking bug… the opal fossicking bug, as you may never escape Lightning Ridge and the intriguing phenomena of becoming a local and trying to strike it rich. Good luck!
The post Lost in Lightning Ridge! appeared first on GoRV.
Source: https://www.gorv.com.au/lost-in-lightning-ridge/
