Lucky Strike

Lightning Ridge and Bourke

NSW

June 20 to 24, 2016

The adventure continues.

We left Narromine and headed to Lightning Ridge via Coonamble and Walgett. The country is so beautiful and green after the recent rain. The creeks are swollen, the rivers are filling rapidly and the farmers are rubbing their hands together in glee.

The opal-mining town of Lightning Ridge was a delight - so quirky, so irreverent. The official population is 2800; the unofficial count is 8000. It is a friendly hill-billy sort of place that kept us entertained.

Mining shafts and mullock mounds everywhere. 

Car-casses everywhere.

A church amidst the mullock. It was purpose built to feature in the weird art house movie "Goddess of 1967" and then abandoned. Where's Wally?

Most mining is underground following opal seams but this one became open-cut after the Halley's Comet opal worth $2.5 million was discovered here. Furious digging ensued. 

Garry giving an old mate a wind up.

Did I say they are friendly folk? Mostly, but some get a bit territorial. 

Great sense of humour. Note the stubby holder on the side of the chair.

Amigo's Castle is an ironstone edifice built by one man, Amigo, who missed the Roman ruins of his birthplace in northern Italy. 

A bottle and stone house.

We were very taken with the artwork of John Murray. He has a fabulous gallery in town but his works are found all over the place. The one above is on the side of a building. "Stanley", below, stands on the main highway into Lightning Ridge. He's 18m tall and made of steel, scrap metal and an old Volkswagen. 

John's classic portrait of Tony Abbott in his budgie smugglers.

One of the highlights was a visit to the Chambers of the Black Hand. It is a working opal mine but no gems of any value have ever come out of it. Discouraged, miner Ron Canlin started carving the sandstone and over the past 20 years has excavated a labyrinth and created a gallery of works. Just a fraction of his handiwork follow, an eclectic mix of subjects. Fascinating. 

That's a realistic sculpture of Jennifer!

We spent a day doing a bush pub crawl with another couple, Wayne and Raina. It was a dry crawl on a wet day, if you get my drift. Great fun.

Lots of rain had turned the roads to mush.
Garry grit his teeth and drove on, ignoring the slip slop slap of mud up the side of Pedro.

First stop was the Club in the Scrub. Character plus.

Number two was the Sheepyard Inn.

Finally, the Glengarry Hilton.

At the end of the day, it was time for another soak in the Artesian Bore Bath which at 40C is divine on a cold evening. 

Then it was onto Bourke. We stopped at Brewarrina on the way for lunch. The Barwon River was flowing beautifully. 

As the gateway to the outback, Bourke has played a pivotal role in the development of the west. We spent many hours at the Back O' Bourke Exhibition Centre which gives a captivating account of the town's history and folklore.

John Murray's artwork welcomes us to Bourke.

The Darling River. Great to see it flowing.
The North Bourke Bridge was built in 1883 and is the only surviving vertical lift span bridge in Australia.

It's incredible to think Bourke was a bustling port in the 1890s with paddle steamers carrying wool bales all the way to the Murray in Victoria. Today, the PV Jandra, pictured, carries tourists a few kilometres upstream.  

 We were very taken with the artwork of Jenny Greentree who displays her work at the Back O' Bourke Gallery.  She is inspired by the outback and uses pastels to great effect. 

Two of her works follow. 

Finally, Bourke brought back some amazing memories for Garry.  When he was 18, he left Narromine to hitch hike to work in the mines of Mt Isa. It was an incredible trip that involved lifts with a drug dealer, a speed freak and school teachers cum pig hunters who stopped at every pub along the way to pick up a six pack. He was accosted by police on the side of the road at Cunnamulla and strip searched before being taken in overnight by the local minister and his wife. He survived a locust swarm and some manic off-road trails. The stories go on and on. The trip could make a movie.

It was on the corner below at North Bourke that he snagged a lift with an old drover in a 1963 Holden ute full of dogs and rabbit traps. He loved Mt Isa but Mt Isa didn't love him. Eventually, Garry was sacked for working too fast. He says it was the most incredible six months of his life. 

Re-enacting one leg of the craziest trip of his life.