One night in Hebel........

We thought we would just go for a drive and a bit of 4 wheel driving to boot!! After dodging dead cows, sheep and many a roo through Goodooga we wound our way to Hebel. Hebel is a Bordertown - 10 km's north from the Queensland border

When we arrived the Ipswich Car Rally were having a cool drink at the Hebel pub before heading to Birdsville.

We walked around and checked out some of their cars and then decided to go and join them

As it was voting day nearly every local dropped in for a few beers

We decided to settle in for the day (and night) and meet some local characters

After securing our accommodation for the night we relaxed and got amongst it

The pub is another golden oldie with loads of character and characters!!

The wooden boards have a downward slant (and no it wasn't due to alcohol)

Chris the publican is a top bloke and had a great yarn with him. He was trying to set us up with some local farmers for work - so a few business cards were handed around

Here is Buddy socialising with the locals

One of the many great people we met that night was Ned who is a local farmer - he owns a wheat, oat, cotton and cattle farm 30 kms out of town.  He had a bet with Rob to see if he could fix his air conditioner the next day - fix it and I pay you including travel time - don't fix it I pay you nothing. 

So after a hearty breakfast we headed out to Lowlands - Rob got on with his bet but after pulling the airconditioner apart realised the mice had chewed through numerous wires etc and was beyond repair. 

Ned told us that's great least I know what's wrong - now he could just ring and get a replacement instead of waiting 5 weeks for someone to come and tell him that and another 6 weeks for a new one to be installed.

On the way out we followed him and he gave us a tour of his property

We travelled across dam and levy walls for about 3 km's and as you can see they are full - due to the recent floods. 

As we drove past hundreds of pelicans took to the skies

Here is his oats - as far as the eye can see - it was quite amazing

An irrigation canal runs the whole distance around the crops

Lightning Ridge (Part 3)

One Man's Castle

Is another man's home (Happy and Teena's House)

Is another man's humpy!!!!

On Simms Hill there is no electricity so the hum of generators fill the air.  Apart from owning a rainwater tank they survive on bore water.

We went on a bit of a tiki tour to Grawin (another large opal mining area, I won't call it a town)

In the middle of nowhere on rough roads we came across

The Club in the Scrub - Complete with a nine hole golf course!!

Further along in the middle of nowhere again and more bone shattering roads we found

The sheepyard pub (funny I didn't see any sheep hanging around the bar baahaaa)

A few old diggers tho!! The tram is a restaurant and on the menu you can find

Cuppa chicken soup (instant) with a roll

We opted to eat our own fresh advocado, tomato and cheese rolls tho!

The local electrician, renowned for never getting back to anyone, lives up to his name!! and of course never rang Rob back regarding his 3 weeks work.

Rob is going out with  Happy and Aaron (our local 4th generation miner friend) for 3 or 4 days to do some electrical work on his equipment.

As for me I'll stay home and cook and read and relax!!!

Lightning Ridge word for the day

"Ratters"

This is someone or a small community of people who wait until someone has left their claim, even if they just go to the pub or go home for the night, and come in and steal all the opals they can find, generators, lights etc. They will even secretly burrow from neighouring claims into their claim and ferret the opals.  When the owners drill down they find their claim has already been ballroomed.

This in the past has led to western style shootouts!! 

Lightning Ridge (Part 2)

 Yesterday we found $40,000 worth of opals !!!!!

But unfortunately we can't keep them.

Black opal pictured above

(this one alone could fetch up to $20,000, if it had been a red on black probably about $100,000)

We went to visit Happy's site where they were tailing. This is the last process to opal mining.

Once mined the trucks take the load to the agies (agitators) where they run on a conveyor belt into a large cement type mixer.

Water is continually added to this and they are spun round and round for about two hours or until the water is clear and the mud is rinsed off. This is then reversed and what's left comes back out the conveyor and loaded into the "bucket", which is the front end of a loader.

They then go through the loader looking for the opals. We spent a good 3 hours helping them find opals (and no we didn't have big jackets with lots of pockets). We filled a saucepan with opals of all colours with an estimated value of $20,000. Aaron the owner is a 4th generation miner and is only 30 years old. His grandfather was the 7th family to arrive here and within 2 weeks the place was crawling with 3,000 miners!!!! Afterwards we got to drive through his open cut mine, now the largest worked open cut mine around. It was amazing. If you look closely at the pic behind the digger you will see holes in the wall - this was when originally by hand, axe picked their way through a mine shaft.

 
As a token of good gesture we were given a black nobby (a big black opal but no colour) as a souvenir of our visit. Lightning Ridge is the only place that black nobby's are found. The premium opal to be found is a black nobby with a layer of colour banded through it or on top, red fetching the highest prices.

Time pays off as now Rob has managed to secure 3 weeks work with a local electrician and starts sometime next week.

Lightning Ridge

Well we have been at Lightning Ridge for nearly a week, land of the Black Opal. We arrived opening day of the Opal Festival and so did the rain. Very glad we got out of Dirranbandi when we did! We managed to get the bus tucked away safely on Simms Hill, 170 metres above sea level and the highest point of the district. The sun is out now and the puddles are drying out on the flats. Interesting town and we have spent our time looking around the old diggings and having a little speck here and there. We have found heaps of opal - unfortunately not the valuable kind. Some nice pieces but very small. We will continue looking though and now know why everyone here walks around with their eyes on the ground. We went up to Lunatic lookout one of the biggest open cut mines where one black opal was found in 1986 worth $6 million and they called it Haileys Comet. They call it Lunatic Hill cos they say that to work on this particular mine you have to be a lunatic. Here you had to mine very deep to find the opals and it was considered very dangerous in those days as it was hand dug open shafts and there was always a fear of mines collapsing. We have been staying at our gracious hosts Happy and Teena's place on their residential claim. Residential claims are anything from two bedroom cottages to tin humpies and rotted out caravans and were originally intensively mined. Now lots of old rusting trucks, bedfords and machinery. The landscape is full of anthill mounds of where they worked and most of them are covered with a piece of tin or a bit of barbed wire fencing around them. We have been visiting the artesian hot baths nearly every day where they are always 41 degrees and open 24/7. aggghhhhhhhhhh nice one. Lots of potential work here but it is a waiting game as everything runs verry slow out here. We are happy sitting back and relaxing and being tourists for the moment tho!