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!