Day 242 / 2014 - Lighning Ridge Being a Tourist

Lightning Ridge is proberbly the first large tourist town we had been in since leaving Mt Isa and there are plenty of things to see for the discerning tourist.

There are a number of tourist exhibits to look at but like most places you can't see everything. It is not so much about the time but it gets exspensive and you want to save your tourist dollar for many of the other tourist meccas comming up down the track. Visiting the Tourist Information centre we looked through the brochures and chose a number of paid and free exhibits with our list as follows: -

• Artesian Pools
• John Murray Art Centre
• The Main Street of Town
• The Chambers of the Black Hand
• The Big Opal
• Amigos Castle
• The Astronomy Observatory

The Artesian Pool is a large pool and is filled with water from the Artesian Basin. The water in the pool is hot and is average 41 degrees the pool is open 22 hours per day and is free to enter a great place to while away the aches and pains.

John Murray is an artist based in Lightning Ridge and paints photorealistic art of the australian outback. His Gallery displays many of his works and is located in the main street. We found his painting of the Oodnadatta roadhouse captivating and while the image of the roadhouse itself is quite accurate the surrounding countryside doesn't quite look right.

The Chamber of the Black Hand is a mine of two levels the upper level containing wall carvings while the lower level is where the mining is still done. The upper level is accessable by a long staircased ramp going down about 45 metres. The tour starts in the lower level which is accessable via another tunnel which goes down 60 metres where a knowlegable guide shows you through the workings of the mine describing the process of opal mine as he goes.

Once the mine tour is complete you then return back to to the upper level where at your own pace you can walk through tunnels with many carvings of various themes such as an egyption area, Super hero area. There is also a wall of carvings depicting past and present Australian Prime Ministers. There is also carvings of many of the cartoon characters as well as mythical monsters. This level also contains the gift shop where you can buy opal adorned jewelry.

The Big Opal is also another mine tour but this one is self guided. The mine is accesable by a spiral staircase which goes down about 60 metres. The mine is still operating but the areas being dug are closed off and can only be viewed through a wire fence. You can take as long as you want to view the diggings and there are a couple of spots you can still see Opal.

Amigos castle is one mans ambition to build himself a house out of stones after he got tired of Opal mining. He started by collecting the rocks around the local area but soon expanded further a field. He has been building this castle for the last 25 years and doesn't look like finishing it any time soon. He doesn't employ approved occupation healh saftey building methods for instance he used 44 gallon drums and wooden planks as scafolding.

The Astronomy observatory can be best described as a concrete structure which is currently closed.

The Lawn Bowls club in the main street is a large building which contains a resturaunt and pokies gambling area. The meals and drinks are quite cheap and not to bad in taste. We caught up with Dave and Norma Brown and had dinner with them there as well as a flutter on the Pokies.