Fri, 24th May, 2024 Lightning Ridge Rest Area, Castlereagh Highway to Alex Trevallion Park Rest Area, Walgett, NSW (exploring Grawin Opalfields etc)

6.3 degrees this morning with lovely sunrise colours on the wispy clouds across the road behind Stanley the Emu.

After breakfast we went through our ‘lucky dip’ bag and found a few nice bits of potch and couple of very little bits of opal - a pretty white one.

Didn’t get the camp photo last night so went out for that and to get the interesting ‘light the toilets’ info. Should have tried it out last night before we set up camp.

Headed back down the highway a bit then right to explore the other opal mining areas following the Orange Car Door Tour.

Through cattle grazing country first and very rough cattle grids. Up and over a wide ridge but no opal up here apparently.

Mum and Dad emus wandering about. I looked up some facts about emus. In the wild they don’t mate for life - they are polyandrous, the female can have multiple partners. A couple get together for about 5 months of courtship, building their nest and the she lays her eggs. She then goes in search for the next male to mate with. The male then gets the job of sitting on the eggs till they hatch then he raises the young for between 5 and 18 months - what good Daddies. Mothers are just about keeping the population growing!

Into little ‘village’ of Cumborah - there is a free camp here. Lots of cypress pines growing around here.

Continued along to Rotton Plains and turned off to head to the opal fields - home of the Black Seam Opal. Apparently they don’t have nobbies here like they get in Lightning Ridge. Maybe it’s something to do with the lightning!

Into Grawin and onto gravel. We passed the turn off to the Golf Course. Lots of ‘interesting’ shacks and a picnic area with playground.

We continued along following yellow signs to Marg’s Carvings. It is at Hammond’s Hill which was the first place they found opal at. Had a lovely time chatting with Marg about lease costs and the changing rules etc. They have only been here since 2018 as they lived in Lightning Ridge for years and Sapphire, Qld before that. Her husband has been fossicking and prospecting most of his life. She certainly has lots of interesting carvings, jewellery and opals for sale.

We went back to the playground and had a cuppa. This camp even had a lake and piles of rocks everywhere. Thin clouds have covered the sky now. It is certainly a different world around here with the shacks beside the opal leases - not far to go to work I suppose.

Continued on the orange tour through more mining areas which is all on a pastoral lease, Mundaroo Station. Some mines are right beside the road. Some trucks don’t look like they would be able to drive to the next lease! Spotted air vents here and there for the mines underneath us.

Giant stockpiles of dirt from the miners. We couldn’t find the memorials to the miners.

Continued down the road to the Y intersection - we went right to Glengarry. 

A few more quirky homes in this little ‘township’.

Stopped at the Glengarry Hilton for a look. Lots of interesting things to read and look at.

Very wet in 2011 at Rotton Plain.

Great stools. Wandered over to the fossicking area but didn’t turn up anything exciting.

Continued on checking out the diverse array of ‘homes’.

Onto the Dog ‘n ’ Duck Road and into Sheepyard where the road was lined with old vehicles and equipment and there were people all over the road.

We parked around the back of the Inn. Interesting trees back here.

We went to see what the people were looking for. They were part of a tour group and the leader had them looking for opal bits along the road as that was what the road is made of - old opal dumps. We continued along looking at all the vehicles. We looked for opals too but didn’t find any.

We went into the Pub and Steve chatted with a couple of chaps out front while I checked out the book exchange. Got some good ones so got our the ones we have read to swap with them.

Inside we found some opal and the most magnificent pool table. The walls are lined with names of people who are in the Defence Forces as there is a war memorial up the road near the lake.

A couple of pianos outside look like they have been in the wars.

We went across to the opal shop in a container out the back and checked out the display of fossils and opal. There was an article on the wall about Tony finding a huge opal with his partner - Steve realised that was who he was talking too. He owns this pub and also the Glengarry Hilton.

We tried our luck with the others off the tour in the fossicking area but didn’t find anything exciting.

Headed up the road to the war memorial at Lake Beard which was built by the opal miners - many are Vietnam Vets. Very nice tribute.

We had lunch by the lake. Some Rural Fire Brigade men stopped by to have a look at a plaque for a fellow member that had just been put on after passing away in a bush fire here.

We headed back to Grawin and around to the Club in the Scrub. It was built by the opal miners over several years and is a registered Sports Club. They have a golf course too.

Some fabulous opal photos, history and a huge piece of potch inside the foyer. Not sure about the snake skin.

We drove back out and headed back to Cumborah then onto the alternate route through the cattle and sheep farms with fields of yellow flowers back to Walgett. I spotted a camel then another one in a paddock - wild? Then two emus by the fence wandering along.

Passed the turn off to Bourke then across the Barwon River.

Into Walgett and around to the levee bank. It completely surrounds the town and its construction took 21 weeks and 4 days to complete back in 1961. It was designed to be 2 feet about the 1890 flood which peaked at 13.84 metres. It is 8540m long and is thought to be the first permanent levee bank in Australia. We parked up and walked along it to find the Norman ‘Tracker’ Walford walk.

Found another info board in the bush a bit further along about the trackers, a brewery and the aboriginal families that lived here by the river.

The walk was a track down by the river which we followed for a while till it got too boggy.

Back to the truck then around to the Artesian Bore Pool.

There was a few people in there - they said it was fabulous. I checked the water temperature (41.5 degrees) first and agreed so we went back and put our togs on. It was heavenly. Chatted with the others for a bit then they headed off. We had it to ourselves for quite a while which was lovely. The bore water came in through to pipes and was a lot warmer than the rest of the pool. We relaxed for a while then headed into the amenities for a warm shower to get the smell of the sulphur out of our togs.

Made a cuppa then checked out the wool wagon in the shed which was restored by two locals in 2018.

Nearby was info about Frederick Wolseley, the creator of the shearing hand piece.

Topped up with diesel then headed to the south end of town to the Alex Treallion Park Rest Area for the night. Lots of other travellers already set up. We chose a spot.

Lots of ‘happy family’ birds about. They seem to always be in big groups and chat away.

There were info boards in the park so I went for a wander. Some were about the Macquarie Marshes further west from here and another invention that Wolseley made.

There is a lovely lake here too.

Banjo Paterson wrote a poem about Walgett.

I went back to the camper and started working on my blog while Steve went for a wander. He hadn’t come back so I went to find him. He was chatting with a couple down near the lake and he said, guess where they are from? Cairns of course and when I looked at the lady she was very familiar. We worked it out - Chrissy was a cleaner at TBHS and she used to come into Tuckshop in the afternoon to clean it for us. What a small world. I sent Rochelle a text to say we had bumped into her and her cousin.

Back to the camper for a drink and then dinner as the sun disappeared.