I was surprised how big Lightnng Ridge is and that it is all above ground, unlike White Cliffs and Coober Pedy. I think we were lucky with our choice of motel – it is comfortable and quite modern, unlike the other 2 that were close by. It is owned by the Bowling Club, which is over the road, so guess where we went for dinner. Dinner was from 6pm and we arrived shortly after to find a long queue at the bistro and only a couple of tables free. It was so busy. It became evident that people were also getting the meals as take away. I guess that is because once again there were not too many alternatives. It was certainly a step above our dinner at Injune. It is a big club.
Monday we decided to explore Lightning Ridge. They have a unique method of seeing things – they have 4 coloured car door trails. You go to the start of a trail and follow the coloured car doors. It doesnt take long to see why they use car doors. Everywhere there is dead machinery, trucks, cars etc, so no shortage of doors. There is surprisingly quite a large area with bitumen streets and houses, back from the main street. However, after that it is dirt tracks and roads, in around the diggings. It is all still very active so you have to stay on the designated trails, there are too many mine shafts all over the place.
We did each of the 4 trails. On one we went to Amigo’s Castle, a private home single handedly built of ironstone. Amigo started building in 1981. His scaffolding consisted of 44 gallon drums, with planks arranged one above the other. As he had collected all the rocks from around the area, the Greenies brought action. Then the locals supported him and all sorts of issues and court cases ensued. In the end he was going to bulldoze the castle if he was not allowed to stay. It now has a Heritage listing (such a young building) but he has wiped his hands of it and is now living in a besser brick building behind it, but still mining. When we looked over the castle, there was a wishing well he’d made and you could hear him working below.
On another trail we stopped at Chambers of the Black Hand. We descended over 70 stairs into the top of the mine which was then a series of tunnels that had been mined over time. The miner has, over time been carving over 700 reliefs on the walls. He does it with a butter knife and fork. He was actually there, working on a possum. He said he saw an empty space that needed something so this morning put a possum in. The passageways were filled with every type of subject matter. He had Egyptian mummies, freezes, the Last Supper, Chinese warriors, animals of all sorts, Super Heroes, heads of Prime Ministers of Aust and then of famous people. He had put bars across the one of Rolf Harris. The passageways ran off in all directions and in circles. Amazing. He was chatting as he sculpted, saying he had quit mining 6 months ago but would still buy a piece of opal if he thought he could make money. He said he never made it big when he was mining. He’s probably doing well with this underground gallery at $35/person. There was a theatre and also another level below where you could go on a mine tour.
We went back to the Bowling Club for a sandwich for lunch – where else did you go? They told us that there had been a blackout in Lightning Ridge and the surrounding areas for some hours and it would probably not be back for another hour, but it was ok they had their own generator. We heard later that a kookaburra had flown into a substation.
After lunch it was another couple of trails. One took us to a ridge that looked out over the black soil plains. We went to Nettleton’s First Shaft Lookout where there was a Stone Labyrinth (a maze made with rocks) which of course we tried. Nearby was a Beer Can House (only in Aust) that was in some disrepair but quite amusing. We also saw a corrugated iron church purpose built for the film “Goddess of 1967”, and Bevan’s Cactus Nursery with 2300 species of cactus. We didn’t pay to go inside this.
There is an artesian bore bath that we checked out this morning. It was really a round pool with 40 degree water in it. I was not that keen to go in. You couldn’t see the water changing and there were quite a few sitting in it. I’ll stick to my beautiful water.
Dinner was back at the Bowling Club – where else! This time it was not as busy as the night before, but they were still doing really well.
Jottings & Blottings 