Crazy Car Doors

Always so handy to have your home with you!

On the Thursday before the Easter weekend we arrived in Lightening Ridge, a town tucked away just below the Queensland border in outback New South Wales. About 5kms from the turnoff to the town we got stopped in a traffic jam. A big truck had rolled its trailer carrying a heap of metal poles and the road was blocked off. It was amusing to see that all of the vehicles in front and behind us were cars with caravans behind them. We passed the time by chatting to a few of the other drivers and comparing travel experiences. The great thing about always having your home with you is that even if you get unexpectedly stopped you can always make a cuppa!

When we arrived at Lightning Ridge the town was buzzing! We called through here last year and it was a sleepy little town with no one around. This time there were people everywhere and the whole town was coming alive for the annual Easter Festival. Carnivals and markets were being set up and everyone was in a party mood.

We stayed at the Lightning Ridge Holiday Resort. I think they use the term ‘resort’ a bit loosely, but it did have a few things going for it. There was a swimming pool, a bistro and a pub in the middle of the property. We spent a lot of time at the pub. There was a playground in the beer garden and live music on the stage every afternoon. It was great to sit down with a cold beer, and listen to all the locals talking about their luck (or not) at opal mining.

The Lightning Ridge area is a world epicentre of the mining of black opals and other opal gemstones. Lightning Ridge has the largest known deposits of black opals in the world.

While we were there we went on a few mine tours and even tried our luck at fossicking. It was hot and dusty work and we didn’t have any luck so Dan bought an opal pendant for me from one of the mine shops.

Will and I spent Easter Monday at the local hospital after he trod on a rusty nail that went straight through his shoe and into the sole of his foot. He was really brave but spent the next few days hopping about with bandages on his foot.

Lightning Ridge is one of the strangest places we have been to on this trip. There is the church built but never used; the medieval castle (the moat is yet to be dug) and there is even a monument to the stars built by a Pole, who was obviously crazy. It is full of crazy people, and looks like a desolate wasteland! Almost like a war zone. The landscape is mostly bare rocky ground covered in small shrubs and leafless trees. In amongst the flora are thousands of rusty barbed wire fences and star pickets marking off metre square sections of land. Within these squares lie the entrances to an underground world! There are thousands of mine shafts all over Lightening Ridge. Some are still used today but most are abandoned.

 

A house made from bottles and cans!

Most of the abandoned mine shafts lie there almost waiting for someone to fall in them, but a few clever people have tapped into the tourist trade by developing their underground mines into works of art.

The Chamber of the Black Hand is a perfect example of how creative the people of Lighting Ridge are.  A guy named Ron Canlin owned a claim called “The Black Hand”.  While he was down the walk-in mine, he noticed the beautiful layer of sandstone rock. He decided to try carving the sandstone and after a bit of practice he carved a whole art gallery. The gallery is now open to the public and we spent an awe inspiring afternoon viewing the artwork.

Will wasn't happy, he had to limp around all day!

Dan being a bit 'cheeky'!

In amongst this crazy township is some of the most amazing artwork we have seen. The local artist John Murray is by far the most creative and humorous artist I have seen for a long time. His beautiful paintings contrast serious landscapes with whimsical caricatures of birds and other Australian creatures. If we weren’t living in a caravan, I would have purchased some of his paintings. I had to settle for a couple of his small prints which I have hung on the caravan wall.

As an example of how crazy the locals are; every available vehicle has been modified to be used as some kind of mining machine. All unnecessary parts have been removed to keep the weight down. So what do you do with all the unused car doors and bonnets? Paint them different colours, hang them off trees and they become the street signs around town. There are even coloured “car door tours” you can follow to take you to the local attractions.

We were told by one locals that’s it’s seen as very rude to ask the last names of the residents who live out in the mine fields. In fact most of them don’t even tell people their first names. They are known only by nicknames like Danno, Johno, Micko, Big Al etc. Apparently most of the people who come to Lightning Ridge are there to either make their fortune in opals or they are hiding from something or someone (usually ex-wives we were told!)

They come here and spend as little as possible on leasing a claim of land, make their mining tools from whatever rusted old machinery they can find and live in run down old shelters, shacks or caravans. Whether they are fortunate to strike it lucky, or spend their life looking for the elusive black Opal, everyone in Lighting Ridge has a love for this most unusual of towns.

One of the attractions that bring in the tourists is the Artesian hot baths. Lightning Ridge has abundant hot water from a bore spring into the Great Artesian Basin and offers two hot water pools for bathing. The minerals make the water very healthy for external use and drinking. The water was about 40 degrees when we took a dip. It was too hot to stay in for long but lovely to sit on the steps and soak our legs and feet.

About 5ks out of town is a monument that explains how Lightning Ridge got its name; The name Lightning Ridge is said to have originated when in the 1870s some passers-by found the bodies of a farmer, his dog and 600 sheep which had all been struck by lightning.

Will having a go at Plate Spinning at the

Easter Festival

The whole town turns out for the BIG DIG - where 8 lucky

people get the chance to dig for Opals worth $100's.

Excited boys on Easter morning

Easter Bunny left eggs hidden all over the van - the boys

 had to find them quickly before they melted!

Some of the roads are still closed from the floods.

Aren't we a sexy couple!!

Ready to go down into an opal mine.

Marvel didn't know what to think of our little green visitor!

 

Back to good ol' Gooly

We packed up and left Bathurst and headed back to one of our favourite places, Gooloogong. Now Gooly (as the locals call it) isn’t really anything special. Except when we were here last year we had a wonderful time. It is a very quiet little town with some of the friendliest people we have met. We wanted to go back there to visit some of the people we had met last year.

Since we were last here, the little town of Gooloogong had had some massive flooding. Only a few weeks earlier, the river banks had burst and the whole town was nearly under water. There was still evidence of how high the water levels had risen and after talking to the locals it was a very unpleasant experience. But the town had worked together and cleaned up nearly all of the debris.

We have now been travelling for over a year and for the whole time we have been trying to decide on a name for our caravan. There are some fantastic and very clever names out there and we wanted to personalise our little home.

Last year we came up with the name ‘snail’s pace” because we were taking so long moving from one place to another and because our little Patrol really couldn’t go very fast whilst towing the caravan. We were, therefore moving around Australia at a ‘snail’s pace’. However, since upgrading the car, that name no longer applies.

While driving from Bathurst to Gooloogong the song “On the road again” by Willie Nelson came on and Sam very casually said “hey, this should be our theme song”. We realise that we almost always sing that song when we first get in the car after staying somewhere for a while. It was perfect! So while we were in Gooly, we contacted the local welder and sticker writer, Simon, and asked him to put together stickers for our van. He did a wonderful job and we now have a name!

On the road again -
Just can't wait to get on the road again.
The life I love is making music with my friends

And I can't wait to get on the road again.
On the road again

Goin' places that I've never been.
Seein' things that I may never see again

And I can't wait to get on the road again.

On the road again -
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends.
Insisting that the world keep turning our way

And our way
is on the road again.

Leaving Gooloogong we had a really good feeling. It was so good to finally have a name for our caravan! We proudly left the town and even got a few comments by passersby about how they sing the song when they are going on holidays too.
 

About 40ks down the road we pulled aside to let a car with a little caravan pass us. As they pulled back in front of us, we could not believe what we were seeing. For the first time ever we were looking at a caravan with the name “on the road again” The exact same name that we had just called our van! We have never seen that name before and within an hour of driving with our new name we come across one of the same.

As we passed through Dubbo we stopped Elston Park to visit their water playground again. It was a beautiful sunny day so the boys walked, fully clothed, into the water park and spent the next hour having a ball!

 

After lunch Dan, Marvel and I sat on the grass and enjoyed watching the boys play.

We spent the next night at a little campground called Eumungerie, south of the town Gilgandra. It is known as the town of windmills and the home of coo-ee. We couldn’t figure out why they say that so I looked it up as we left town.

“Gilgandra is known as the town of Windmills and Home of the Coo-ees. Until 1966 the town did not have a central water supply and most people in the town had a windmill. At one point the skyline of the township was dominated with approximately 360 Windmills.

The home of the Coo-ee refers to the march of 35 men from Gilgandra to Sydney in 1915 to volunteer for the war. By the time they reached Sydney their numbers had swelled to 263 making the 1915 Coo-ee March from Gilgandra to Sydney the first and most successful recruitment march of World War 1”

A little Green Tree Frog in the ladies toilets.

Zaccy decided it was mean to pee on the frogs so we all had to use the caravan toilet!

 

On your marks...

After a lovely (albeit wet) week alongside the Murrumbidgee River, we packed up and drove North East to Bathurst.

Macquarie Woods Campground

We have the GPS set to bus (to allow for our length) and we have the ‘allow gravel roads’ box ticked. However, we were still surprised when we found ourselves going along a little farm road and the GPS tried to get us to turn up a road that we could hardly see. It obviously hadn’t been travelled upon in a very long time because the grass growing along the centre was higher than our caravan! So after going down a few wrong turns and having to back up our rather long rig, we finally made it to Vittoria.

Macquarie Woods is a beautiful campground behind a pine forest about half way between Orange and Bathurst. It has limited facilities but is a big, open, grassed area on rolling hills with beautiful views.



The famous mountain sign

The main reason we were at Bathurst was so Dan could give the new car a spin around the track. We were thinking of taking the caravan too until we remembered how steep it is. Mount Panorama is the home of the Bathurst 12 Hour motor race, held every February, and the Bathurst 1000 motor race, held every October. The track is just over 6 km long is technically a street circuit, as the circuit is a public road when no racing events are being run, however there is a strict 60 kph speed limit and the police are often there catching the wannabe Peter Brocks. We were really surprised to see there are many residences which can only be accessed from the circuit. You wouldn’t want to be trying to get out of your driveway on race day!

We had a great time going around the track, first with me in the car, then with me taking some excellent photos from outside. We then headed back into town to have a look around when I realised that I didn’t have a SD card in my camera. My old camera told me if I had forgotten to put the card back after transferring photo to my laptop, but not my new one. So all of the great photos I had just taken were lost! Dan was devastated so we went and got a new card and did it all again!

Bathurst is a lovely old town. Being the first inland settlement in Australia and the sight of the first gold discovery, it is full of Australian history. Bathurst has a historic city centre with many buildings remaining from the gold rush period of the mid to late 1800s. We spent an afternoon driving around looking at all of the beautiful old houses, schools, churches and other buildings.

On our way back to camp the weather turned bad. It started to rain and the wind really picked up. We hadn’t tied our awning down before we left because it had been a beautiful sunny morning. We also hadn’t planned on spending so much time in town. As we approached the campground it was blowing a gale and we prepared ourselves to face lots of damage to our awning.  However when we arrived there we were greeted by our neighbours who told us they had brought our awning in for us! As ours is completely different from theirs, they had to round up a few other blokes from the campground to try to figure out how to bring it in.

That is one of the things I love about travelling this country. Nearly every other traveller on the road is exceptionally friendly and willing to help each other out. It gives you a really nice feeling. Sometimes it can get a bit lonely on the road especially when you are travelling to some of the more remote areas, but knowing that there are thousands of other travellers out there in the same situation and who are willing to help each other, gives you are real sense of community.

 

 

 

Early morning fog rolling over the hills

 

 

After leaving Macquarie Woods we stopped at the Japanese Gardens in Cowra.