Day 23, Friday 13/07/2012, Lightning Ridge to Tamworth

Black Friday! Our plan had been to tour a mine today. The guy that owns it has spent the last 14 years carving statues while mining (for decoration). It was closed due to the rain so we did a self drive tour instead through the older section of town. It is called the “Red Door Tour”. Lisa and Stuart lead the way, reading the guide as we went. It is a novel way to see old Lightning Ridge, with red car doors as our guide. It was a 4WD tour as the dirt roads had again become creeks with the downpour we’d been having since last night. There certainly are some crazy buildings out here. I’m not sure about their council building codes.

Following this was a spot of opal shopping.  We had to wait for the shop owner to be phoned. He hadn’t come, thinking there would be no tourists on such a wet day.

There was some beautiful artwork in John Murray’s Gallery with beautiful and novel paintings of Lightning Ridge and the outback in general.  Michael purchased a poster, then it was time to head to Tamworth. There was a rain cell sitting over us the whole way.

Heading into Wee Waa Col hit a galah. I could hear it scream moments later. The poor thing was still alive, caught up near the front wheel. Col helped me get it out. There didn’t seem to be any broken wings. Hopefully there’s not too much internal damage. I took it back into the bush away from the road, getting a decent bite for my troubles. A flock of galahs came to its cries of distress. I hope it will be alright. I totally swamped the bite in antiseptic gel. There can be all sorts of nasties from parrots.

The plan was to take the kids to Macca’s for lunch which they think is an amazing treat. Our headlights stopped working, so we had to follow Stuart closely into Tamworth, arriving at dusk at the Freemans for a little reunion and a one night stopover.

It was a very enjoyable farewell dinner at the Safari Club where we ate, drank, were merry and celebrated some amazing memories from an epic adventure. Time to plan the next one!

We gave Madison part of her birthday present, an opal necklace (more to come tomorrow). Col ordered 1 of everything in what were already massive meals. Even he couldn’t eat it though.

Day 22, Thursday 12/07/2012, Bourke to Lightning Ridge

I awoke at 6am to go to the bathroom and could see lightning to the south and clouds closing in from the north. Col and I decided to wake everyone up early as we thought they would prefer to pack up now rather than when the weather closed in.

It absolutely bucketed down while we were at the bakery in Bourke, with flash flooding in the streets. We didn’t end up leaving Bourke until 9:30am, so lucky we started so early.

At Brewarrina the Darling and Barwon Rivers flow through what is thought to be the oldest manmade structure on earth!! They are estimated to be about 40 000 years old and still work today! They’re not much to look at but you can’t just pass by such an amazing anthropological artefact. There are some great educational signs along the pathway now that explain it all well.

Peter and Anthea have decided to head back to Tamworth today and will part ways at Walgett. This wasn’t much of a surprise with the ongoing rain and mud. What was a surprise though, was that Bruce took this opportunity to bail also. We were a little shocked considering his previous excitement at visiting Lightning Ridge.

We made sandwiches in a park at Walgett, and then parted ways with Freemans and Williams. It will be sad not to have our big group farewell dinner at Tamworth.

Pockrans and Parkes are off to Lightning Ridge now. Michael is crying at the parting of our group which I think reflects how everyone is feeling. It’s hard parting ways when we’ve lived together and relied on each other for the past month. I miss them already!

It was a quick 1hr drive north from Walgett to Lightning Ridge with a huge emu polulation along the way. Lightning Ridge is larger than I expected. We found the new “Opal Caravan Park” that was recommended to us by other travellers at Bourke. It is very clean with good facilities and just far enough out of town to feel a bit safer. Best of all though, was that it was straight across the road from the 42 to 46°C thermal pool.

There was one cabin left which we booked (given the adverse weather). We didn’t really like the thought of swags with flash flooding. Lisa and Stuart had a bed each and the 4 kids shared a couple of beds (bunk) while Col and I slept in our roof top tent in the cabin driveway.

First on the agenda of course was a soak in the artesian spring. It was overcast but not raining. It was a short walk across the road from our cabin. So hot and relaxing but you weren’t able to stay in too long as you’d quickly overheat.

Then it was back to the cabin for showers and a glass of wine on the deck. Cheers to mum who just announced her retirement! Woohoo!

It was a lovely relaxed and scrumptious dinner in town. We went to Bruno’s Pizza and totally stuffed ourselves with food and wine, then headed back to the cabin for a coffee before retiring to bed.