On the Road from Bourke to Lightning Ridge
DAY 7-9
We left the Kidman Camp Caravan Park after a couple of days in Bourke and after about 100km on the road we stopped at Brewarrina for lunch. Brewarrina is on the Barwon River, and is a small town of around 1,000 people. Brewarrina has a large aboriginal population and one of it's main tourist attractions is the fish traps. The Aboriginal stone fish traps are possibly the oldest man-made structures in the world and consist of rocks placed in such a way that the fish are guided into the pools and then the aborigines could then direct them into smaller rock pools where they could catch them or keep them there for future use.
Brewarrina
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| Brewarrina fish traps |
Unfortunately the reeds have grown around the traps and it is quite difficult to see how they would have worked.
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| The fish traps |
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| Looking for a feed |
We left Brewarrina and headed for Walgett. The next 100 km we saw wild goats, emus and kangaroos on the road as well as Brahman cattle grazing on the grass on the side of the road.
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| Walgett free camping area |
We arrived in Walgett and found a free camping area just outside of the town, with about 10 vans staying the night.
Walgett is about 1400 km from Adelaide.
Our next stop Lightning Ridge about an hour's drive from Walgett.
Lightning Ridge
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| Lorne Station camping area |
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| Neighbours at Lorne Station |
Arrived to find the Opal Festival was on and the caravan parks were full so we found the Lorne Station Caravan Park a few kms out of town and it was great, plenty of room and nice and quiet
Lightning Ridge is a very interesting town with so much to see, so we unhooked the van and set off on the Car Door Tourist Trail. The first stop was Lunatic Hill, an open cut opal mine, named because locals thought they must be lunatics to mine there.
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| You can see the mounds of dirt everywhere |
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| Nice mural in town |
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| View from the caravan |
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| Lightning Ridge |
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| Sculpture "Stanley" by John Murray |
The sculpture of Stanley the giant 18 metre Emu was made from scrap metal. and is a few km out of the town but when you see it you know you are close to Lightning Ridge.
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| This church was built for a film set |
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| Old miners cottage |
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| Amigo's Castle |
The Castle was built by a local miner who got tired of mining and decided to build himself a castle, and it isn't finished yet, he's been building it for 25 years. It is amazing and a real work of art. Just another "interesting" feature of this amazing outback town.
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| A local miner's camp |
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| House of Cans |
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| Interesting! |
Lightning Ridge is certainly different, but we loved it there, and will go back again as it has such a lot of great things to see there and of course beautiful opals.
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