Well, in a way we were company coming to Lightning Ridge. This road is
just passable in the dry months of the year. During the wet months the
trip takes another 75 kilometers by way of the bitumen road.
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The Outback Experience 5 |
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The dirt road from Collarenebri to Lightning Ridge was all outback, in most places it was level for as far as the eye could see. Property lines were noted by the cattle grids (guards) across the road. Traveling through this country gazing upon the shapes of nature...ones mind tends to drift...from one fond memory to another. An approaching cloud of dust on the horizon beckons recollection of how excited pioneer children playing in the yard would run to the house shouting company's coming.
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Well, in a way we were company coming to Lightning Ridge. This road is
just passable in the dry months of the year. During the wet months the
trip takes another 75 kilometers by way of the bitumen road.
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We could see Lightning Ridge from the distance, hills of whitish tan earth alongside winding potholed dirt roads were visible on both sides of us. The road which now had turned into bitumen took us by the Lightning Ridge bath house.
We settled into a caravan park downtown, gathered all the tourist brochures and decided to start out the next morning in our pursuit of the Black Opal.
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Liz said she was gonna make a face if I took one more picture...well I did. (grin) On the table were relish, fresh milk for the tea, tomato sauce and margarine for the bread. That was my bed, I was sitting on. We did shop at the RiteWay grocery and Coke was $1.81 Aus for 1.25 liters. Wednesday morning, we were up bright and early. We planned to scout around and go to the Big Opal mine for the tour and stop by the tourist information center for area information. |
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We were early for the 10 am tour at the Big Opal mine so we drove through the mine areas. We came upon an entrepreneur that was both an opal shop and a cactus museum. There was another place that had walls of bottles and cans...quite unusual. The Big Opal mine had a good tourist attraction, cutting and polishing demonstrations, underground mine tour and a video. They also had opals to sell ....(grin) Allan and I at this point were confused about what was a good opal and what opals were worth. Sure they were pretty, but there were so many kinds. It also looked like the chance to accidently stumble across one the size of lemon was things dreams are made of. |
"I Put A Seashell to My Ear...And it all comes back..HomeBoy in Paradise"
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