Lightning Ridge

Wednesday, 30 October 2024

Our first stop this morning was at the Chambers of the Black Hand for the Sculpture and Mine tours back-to-back. Beginning in 1997 mine owner, Ron Canlin hand dug a set of stairs leading down 60ft to his opal mine allowing him to open his workings to the public. He then discovered a talent and passion for carving and with one butter knife carved 900 sculptures into the sandstone levels of his mine.

Once we were issued with hard hats, we took the stairs down into the mine to meet our guide, Ashleigh. Ashleigh and her husband are opal miners so she was very knowledgeable about opal mining. We started the tour in the first two carved chambers (rooms) of the mine before heading 18 metres down the ramp into the original workings of Ron’s opal mine. Ashleigh guided us through the mine’s drives and ballrooms giving us firsthand insights into the life of opal miners, past and present, in Lightning Ridge and showed us a variety of opal samples.

Returning to the level of the chambers we were free to make our own way through the 26 ‘rooms’. It was amazing to see what one man achieved with a single butter knife over 27 years! The rooms are themed, and the sculptures range from Australiana, First Nations, religious themes, Egypt, African wildlife, Star Wars, Superheroes and famous faces to name a few. We easily spent a couple of hours underground without getting bored!

Back above ground we completed the remainder of the Yellow Car Door Tour seeing the construction works for the Australian Opal Centre that is due to open next year. We continued past the worksite to Lunatic Hill named for the miners who were crazy enough to mine on the hill where they had to dig deeper to find colour. They had the last laugh though with this area proving highly profitable with it eventually being open cut to extract all the opal in the hill.

From Lunatic Hill we drove out to the Castlereagh Highway to drive out to see Stanley the Emu designed and built by local artist John Murray. Standing at 18 metres tall, Stanley is crafted from old VW Beetles and satellite dishes atop steel girders. Originally detained for Birsdville, the large distance to travel made it too expensive to transport the sculpture so a home was found for it in Lightning Ridge. He is one BIG BIRD!

Last night we drove straight out to the end of the Green Car Door Tour and arrived after sunset so, in the limited light, we missed a few details. We decided to drive that route again in the daylight mainly to visit the Beer Can House. As we drove back out to Bill O’Brien Way we encountered a couple of emus on the road. They were happily strolling across the road from right to left which was fine and we were happy to wait for them. They had nearly crossed when one panicked and started to sprint back across the road from left to right. OMG, what are they doing? Then it seemed to remember it was trying to get to the other side, so it did a 180 degree turn so quickly its legs nearly went from under it and then they both galloped off into the bush. Such silly birds but not as unexpected as the peacocks last night!!

We lunched again at the Opal Street Café. It was so delicious yesterday that three of us ate the same turkey, cranberry and Brie Turkish bread rolls as yesterday! When you’re on a good thing … Steve was more adventurous and went for the salami and bruschetta on Turkish Bread.

After our lunch we popped into the John Murray Art Gallery. John’s art is known for realistically capturing the arid surroundings of the Australian outback with a little bit of caricature and humour. The emu is a recurrent subject for his art, and he captures their ridiculousness perfectly. We managed to escape the gallery without purchasing a painting but did buy some greeting cards, a calendar and ANOTHER stubby holder. Bernie has certainly added to his stubby holder collection on this trip.

After lunch we drove the Blue Car Door Tour up to Bald Hill the only ridge in town without lines of trees which tends to correspond with a lack of opals. Tree roots like fissures in the rock and it is these fissures that lead to opal bearing deposits. Opal miners tend to look for trees, amongst other things, when they are deciding where to stake a claim. The highlight of this tour though – Bevan’s Cactus Garden. In 1966 the Bevan family started growing cacti from seeds collected around the world and today their garden boasts many plants over 100 years old with the oldest specimen being nearly 150. There were some really impressive mature cactus plants to be seen -and photographed – indeed.

We spent the afternoon relaxing, me especially as I decided to lay on the bed and read my book in air-conditioned comfort. Cathy and Steve tried out the public pool in town and Bernie walked along to the spa again. He arrived back at the cabin bemused by the combine harvester he had seen in the car park. He assumed that a farmer had driven his harvester into town for a quick dip at the end of a long day?? Yesterday while we were there it was the guy in the NRMA ute. He arrived, took a quick shower, soaked in the spa for a few minutes and then left. When it’s free and open all the time (but for two hours cleaning each morning) it doesn’t matter for how long or short a time people decide to take the waters!

Dinner tonight was at Nobbies Bistro. Bernie and Steve demolished delicious steaks, Cathy enjoyed some salt and pepper calamari, and I tucked into a beef burger.