Lightning Ridge.

Lightning Ridge, we have enjoyed our 3 night stay here immensely

This morning I am indulging in a little cathartic writing for my own benefit, so you may wish to jump directly to the pictographs, of which there are many, of our stay here & skip these boring ramblings.

It’s 4 in the morning, dark & cold outside, Yvonne is still fast asleep & I am sleepless as is often the case these days. The park is quiet as a tomb & I am enjoying a honey sweetened double strength coffee & today we will once again be moving on to, we have no idea where.

Our stay here has been wonderful, but as usual I am already feeling a keen sense of sadness to be moving on. Each time we leave a place we have stayed for a couple of nights or more it feels to me like leaving home forever, knowing full well we will probably never again come to this place in this lifetime & it is only the attraction of the unknown which excites & draws us onward.

I have often wondered why I feel like this when we travel & I am slowly coming to the realisation that it isn’t the destination we travel to, but the souls we touch on the journey.

Everyone has a story & most just want to share that story. Every day we are meeting people we would normally have no contact with & I am finding that kind souls can inhabit strange physical bodies of all ages & relaxed conversation over afternoon drinks, lazing in a hot artesian pool or just standing at a windswept roadside rest area in the desert, can calm the soul & act like a soothing mental balm.

It is these things we miss when we leave these people behind & move on.

On the bright side, we know we are going to find more interesting people today, that will touch our lives in many different ways.

I have noticed there are many ladies, in our age group, traveling this country alone. They usually have a motor home, probably because they are easier to handle solo. These ladies have lost their life partners & are on the road, often for years at a time or even permanently, having traded their homes & associated memories, for a nomadic existence that lets their souls lightly touch others & never form deep bonds.

They have a pervasive sense of sadness, melancholy & resignation. They are always lovely to speak with & often travel with a pet.

I call them ‘The Ladies Of The Road’.

While here, we had afternoon entertainment by 2 ladies, Mal & Sue. They are comedians & bush poets & have been performing every afternoon here in the caravan park.

We have attended their show for 3 days in a row, as have many other people & it is never the same twice & always enjoyable. They are sensitive lovely ladies. On leaving their last show yesterday afternoon Sue found Yvonne in the departing crowd & gave her a hug & a kiss & wished her well, it brought a lump to my throat & even now sends shivers down my back. We had never before spoken & they did this to no one else the whole time we were there.

Maybe I should start collecting the stories & feelings we are discovering & put them in a book.

It would be a great way to put people to sleep at night.

“Bedtime Stories For Grown Ups”

 The very hot artesian pools opposite the caravan park. We soaked in these steaming hot waters at night, after dinner, as did many others.

 Opal, what makes Lightning Ridge famous. It is also the only place in the world that produces the valuable black opal.

                                   The house built of bottles that contains plenty of old junk.

              Yvonne Noodling for opal in a mullock heap. We found quite a few worthless bits.

                                                                 Bottle house.

                                                             A modern new rustic style.

                 Ron Murray Gallery, really great but no pictures allowed inside.

                                 Outside the gallery, we explored the town by bike.

                                  Night time, after dinner entertainment at the hot artesian pools.

 Surrounding the town the scene is similar to Coober Pedy, with gazillions of  vertical open shafts that disappear into the bowels of the earth. Walking here at night can easily be a fatal pastime.

              A corrugated iron church at the diggings, surrounded by shafts.

                                               There are a few open cut workings.

                   There are plenty of these, dug by hand hundreds of feet through the rock.

                                                 Machinery & cars come here to die.

 We went deep underground into a mine, 'Chambers Of  The Black Hand' This bloke carved over 800 carving into the soft sandstone walls over many years, using only a butter knife, the same one over the entire period. Some of these carvings are over 3 metres tall.

                                                                      The last supper.

             The one behind bars is Rolf Harris who is currently in jail. I took it from the wrong angle.

                                                       The 3 Buddhas are really big.

                                              Holding the mine up with his head.

                                                        Not much above ground.

                                                  Some carvings were painted.

                                                      Thats me in the Background.

                                                  Bottles & rocks, local materials.

                Amigos' castle, built by one man alone. A similar story to Paronalla Park.

                                                           Pano, as above.

                                   The first shaft sunk in the area, many years ago.

                                  An abandoned house, built mainly of empty beer cans.

                                                                       Inside.

                                              Shafts everywhere & not always with mesh over them.

                                                              Pano, lush country.

                                                           Pano,as above.

                        People starting to wander in for the afternoon Mal & Sue show.

                                                            Mal & Sue.

                                                              As above, short video