Sunday 6 October 2013

On the road to Lightning Ridge

We are out and about again, traveling, this time the goal of our trip was Lightning Ridge. It is a place I had read about and wanted to see. They mine for opals here and apparently it is the only place where you can find black opals. Generally opals are the national gemstone of Australia and black opals are  unique to NSW.

The trip here took almost 12 hours but we had a few stops on the way. One was a pit stop in Gulgong and it just so happened that it was "Welcome back to Gulgong" Day. So there was a market and a parade, which was lots of fun. Everyone paraded, the Golf Club members, the farmers, some herding sheep and some driving tractors, the motorbike drivers, the veteran car drivers, the camel-farm people, and kids from school etc. It was charming and made you feel like you wanted to live and belong to  such a community rather than being part of a big faceless mass in a big city.





The trip after that  went quite quickly though, maybe because hubby took the opportunity to teach me binary numbers.  So once I got the knack of it he told me a number that I had to give him in binary.

After a while we had to give up on that and play another favorite game - thinking of animals starting with an A and so on. This time we tried to do it in French. We have lived in France for 28 years but after being away for 3 years it seems that our brain have atrophied. We couldn't think of anything beyond 'chat et chien', it was pathetic.

The Outback is great! People can be a bit special, in fact it is almost a must. They have all come here for a reason, usually to find the big opal and get rich but it is also a life style. So many have given up their previous jobs to come out here and stake a claim. I was surprised though, to learn that of the miners, the female miners, then the families were in majority before the male miners. I really thought it was a male "thing" but clearly I was wrong.

We are staying in a B & B called Sonja's guesthouse and it it very nice and comfortable and it will be almost sad to leave tomorrow.

It is bedtime, after a full day out and about, of which  I'll tell you more later. So goodnight from Lightning Ridge, apparently called thusly after lightning struck and killed a farmer and his dog and his 600 sheep.


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