Nomading - Roma St. George and Lightning Ridge - 3 - 13 July 2022

The weather has been quite overcast but this morning we did at least wake up to a bit of sunshine. We packed up and we were on our way by 9.30am. We weren’t in any hurry and we only had about 250kms to drive but as we have found on a lot of the roads in Queensland quite a bumpy drive. We passed through some beautiful country running along beside Carnarvon Gorge, the whole trip was quite scenic and it seemed to take no time at all. We arrived in Roma just after lunch time and then checked out the caravan parks, we chose the Big Rig park because it is a G’Day park and we are members so we would receive a discount on our stay. We drove in and the office was closed, we had noticed the sign out the front that said there weren’t any powered site vacancies but we thought we would try anyway because quite often we have found a site regardless of these signs. We were told there were two sites but they were quite wet, it we were happy to have a bit of water underfoot then we were welcome to stay. We walked up to check out the sites and there was a lot of water around but one was better than the other and we thought we could work around the puddles and mud. We set up and then called into the office on our way out after lunch to pay the account. The park is well positioned and our site, apart from being a bit wet, is a good size and in a good position. After calling into the office we drove around to the Visitor Centre to pick up local information and ask for suggestions of how to fill in our time. I am not too sure we have enough time to do all I want to do here.

We fancied visiting the Big Rig this morning, it is just around the corner from where we are staying. There were a couple of options on visiting here, you could do a day time escorted tour or a self guided tour, we decided on the self guided tour because we prefer just to wander around at our own pace. We could also have taken a night tour or a combined day/night tour which meant we would have had to return at 5.30pm. We paid for the day tour with an option to pay the remainder for the day/night package but after wandering the exhibit we decided we had seen enough and did not need to return at night. We were very impressed with this exhibit, there had been a lot of money spent here to set up. Roma was the first place in Australia where gas was discovered so there is an interesting history here from when it was first discovered in 1900 to present day. There is a tower that is the height on the big rig and you can either climb the 13 stories or you can take the elevator, we chose the elevator. The elevator is very interesting with videos on the workings of the mines playing on three walls, we stopped firstly at the second floor where there is a short tree walk and then at the seventh floor before going up further to the 13th floor where views were quite fantastic. We returned to the ground floor and finished walking around the remainder of the exhibits. From here we drove into Woolies to pick up some items for lunch and then when we were leaving I was tapped on the should by our friend Geoff, Leila was up getting a coffee for them while he was having his phone looked at. We had made an appointment at the Telstra shop for Robb to update his phone so we joined up with them until we received a call to return to Telstra. We spent two and a half hours organising his phone and by that time I was well over it and couldn't wait to get back home. Finally we were on our way, when we returned I contacted Geoff and Leila to see what they were doing tomorrow and could we catch up and we have organised to meet at the Sale yards at 8.00am.

We had quite a busy day today starting off very early for us. We had organised to meet Geoff and Leila at the Roma Sale yards at 8.00am to take part in the tour. We arrived on time but Geoff and Leila were running late so we just started the tour and thought they would catch up with us later which they did. We had trouble hearing the first guide talking so moved onto the next one and then we wandered around the yards by ourselves. Roma Sale yard is the biggest one in Australia and one of Roma's claims to fame is it's cattle. We stopped to listen to the auctions but we had no idea what was going on but the people involved seemed to and from the little we picked up there were quite a few sales today. We walked around looking at the various pens and then I had fun watching the cattle in the pens moved from one to the other. This sales yard is huge and there seems to be quite an intricate gate system where they move the cattle along, there were two girls above the pens with long sticks with bags on the end that they used to move the cattle that weren't keen to move on. We think the average price per kilo they were sold for was somewhere between $6 and $7. This was well worth the early start to attend.

After the Sale yards we moved onto Saint Paul's Anglican Church. This is a beautiful old church with many leadlight windows all dedicated to someone and all telling a story. There is also a magnificent organ at the back of the church, we would have loved to hear this being played but the time we were there is set aside for visitors to the area. We sat for awhile, there isn't anything more peaceful than sitting quietly in a church.

It was still quite early and we planned to go out to lunch with Geoff and Leila and needed something to fill in the next hour and a half so we thought we would visit Up The Creek Garage to look at their display of old cars and machinery plus the two Texas Longhorns on the property. Robb and I were going to visit here tomorrow but Geoff and Leila will be moving on and Geoff is really interested in cars so it seemed like a good idea to go today. When I mentioned we were staying in Roma a friend had asked if I would take photos here for him, I was happy enough to do that for him and the garage seemed a bit of a highlight in the area. I liked the fully restored cars that were kept undercover inside and I know the others in varying condition would have been a treat for a car enthusiast but they didn't really mean much to Robb and myself. When we finished looking around we sat in the cafe and had a coffee and a bit of a chat to another couple visiting here and the owner, it was a very pleasant experience.

From here we drove into Bakearoma on the Main Street for lunch, Geoff and Leila will be leaving in the morning and even though we are both heading down South we are not sure if our paths will cross again on our trip home. We had a very pleasant lunch and parted ways promising to catch up when we can, we don't live that far from each other in Gippsland so if not before we may catch up at home.

We still hadn't been to visit Roma's Largest Bottle Tree and we didn't want to miss out on this attraction. I might joke about it but when we turned up there was about 10 groups of people here, all to view the tree and have their photo taken in front of it. It is an impressive looking tree and we walked around the perimeter before returning to the boardwalk to line up with the other groups to take our photo in front of it. We offered to take a photo together for the couple in front of us and they returned the favour, very rarely we have our photo taken together so we were quite pleased. We drove down to the Main Street of Roma from here just to have a look around because we noticed when we drove through the first time there were a few very impressive looking buildings. Roma has had quite a history with floods and fires and there are many information boards along the street telling a story about the older buildings.

We moved onto St. George today driving through the town of Surat, I had wanted to visit here because it was a changing station for Cobb and Co and there is a Cobb and Co. museum there, maybe next time. There are a couple of lovely old buildings here and I tried to photograph them all as we drove through. We arrived quite early in St. George, we didn't go out in the afternoon because I wanted to cook up something special for dinner and we have booked for two nights and I have a list of what we need to see tomorrow.

St. George is not a very big town but there are a few attractions we would like to see, so we started with a drive back the way we had come into town to Beardmore Dam. Another impressive looking dam with a lot of water spilling over from the gates. We walked down to the lookout where we could see the front of the wall and then walked up to the path that lead to the top of the dam. There were three ladies up there and we had a bit of a conversation with them, they were in town for a funeral but they were telling us their father owned a property on the other side of the dam which we could see from where we were. While we were talking a gentleman approached us and joined the conversation, it turns out he manages the dam and we shouldn't have been in the area we were in, he said there were signs at the gate and I said I had seen them but the gate was open so we just walked in, I don't know if he appreciated me telling him if he didn't want people to walk in then the gate needed to be closed. Anyway he didn't kick us out and after a bit more of a chat we moved off anyway.

We had a list of things to see here and our next stop was The Unique Egg in town, I drag Robb to lots of attractions that aren't really that good so we had been joking about visiting an attraction with Emu Eggs and neither of us expected much but we were both very pleasantly surprised. It is not a big exhibit but you can't help admiring the work that has been put into these eggs and there is also quite a bit of artistic talent here. We were shown how the eggs were scrapped for the colours and designs to come out and each egg could have up to 60 hours work on it.

We drove down to the Riverbank to have a look around, it is a lovely family area and there is an excellent walkway along the river that seems to be popular with walkers. There is also an area dedicated to Apex Park, we were interested in this because Robb was in Apex at one time and we loved this period of our life. Beside Apex park is a war memorial that was interesting to look at.

I had seen a couple of church towers while we had been travelling around town so we went in search of them for photos before moving onto our next destination.

After we had finished looking around St. George we drove out to Riversands Winery which is a couple of kilometres out of town. This must be a rest time for grape vines because the vines didn't have much growth on them but the winery when we turned up was very busy. We had to walk around the side into 'the tradesmen's entrance' because the front of the winery was being renovated. That was fine we found our way through and found a seat at the bar, we took a tasting but the couple of wines I wanted to taste were out of stock so I settled for a couple of sparkling wines and a Chardonnay. We came away with one of their sparkling wines which was very pleasant.

Driving back to the van we stopped at Andrew Nixon Bridge that is over the Balonne River. We drove over the other side and then back again.

We are moving on today to Lightning Ridge, this is somewhere I have wanted to visit for a long time, it just seems to be a place that is very different to all we know about living in Australia and I have been intrigued by the many stories I have heard from people who have visited here, or those who regularly return to dig for opals. And I have to say straight up I have not been disappointed. We drove here from St. George, only about 2 and a half hours away, we hadn’t booked ahead because we planned to arrive and find a park but as we came closer to Lightning Ridge we started to notice all the caravans on the road heading in the same direction. When we drove through Hebel there were wall to wall caravans either on the side of the road or pulled into rest areas and then looking in front of us we could see at least eight vans before us on the road, this is when I thought I should call ahead to book. I didn’t have any luck with the first three parks I called and then when I was about to call Lorne Station Caravan Park I received a message from our friends who are staying there to say they had enquired and we should be able to get a powered site if we give them a call now. I phoned straight away and organised for an unpowered site for one night and then three nights on a powered site, I wasn’t looking forward to not having power when the weather is so cold but there wasn’t a lot we could do about it. We arrived in good time and when we arrived the office was empty, I phoned the number on the door and was told there would be someone in the office shortly. I waited in the car until someone turned up. Barry arrived shortly after and opened the front door I walked in to register and thankfully they had a cancellation and we were given a powered site for the four nights. We chose our own site and drove over to park and set up. When we were set up and had lunch I contacted Leila to say we were here, we were going to dinner with them at the bowling club at night but she asked if I would like to go to the cactus nursery with her in the afternoon, that suited me as Robb wouldn’t want to go there and neither did Geoff Leila’s partner. I picked her up and we drove there and had a good look around, there are some very interesting plants here from all over the world, some of them are 80+ years old. It is not a very big garden so we probably only spent an hour here and it wasn’t long until we were driving back to camp. We parted making a time to meet at the club later and we both arrived at the bowling club at the same time and found a table and had a very pleasant evening together, the food was also quite good. It wasn’t a late night but we parted with Geoff and Leila saying our goodbyes because they were moving on in the morning, we may catch up with them later because Robb and I aren’t sure what direction we are going in yet.

We drove directly to the Visitor Centre in the morning to pick up tourist information for our next three days. A big attraction in Lightning Ridge are the self guided Door Tours, there is a Blue. Red, Yellow, Green and Orange tour. We were also given a list of attractions in town and the lady looking after us marked the attractions which you would need to book if you wanted to take a tour, we came away with plenty to keep us busy here. There was a market just outside the Visitor Centre so we had a wander around here before looking for doors. Most of the stalls were based around opals, everyone in town digs for opals and then make up their own jewellery apparently, all the stall holders were more than happy to educate you on opals so we did learn a few things. From here we went in search of the start of the Blue Door tour, we found the start of each tour a bit difficult to find but once you did it was easy to follow the doors around the tracks through the opal mine fields. The doors are mostly old car doors and they have been painted the colour of the tour, as suggested, and they are numbered so you travel from one door to the next, a bit like a car rally. We had a brochure with us that showed the routes and told you what you would see at each numbered door, some doors though were just to help you navigate the tracks. The tours don’t take very long and we easily did the three we wanted before returning to the van for lunch. On the Blue Door Tour Our main stop was The Opal Mine Adventure Walk in Mine where we took a self guided tour for $20 each. Being claustrophobic I was a bit wary when I heard we had to walk down 30 steps to the bottom of the mine then we would be walking the length of it and sitting and watching a 20 minute video about how the mine was dug out and generally about mining in Lightning Ridge. Anyway I managed quite well and I enjoyed the tour and the video, these opal miners can work very hard for very little return and only one in ten will have any luck, only one in ten of these will make any money out of it and only one in ten of these will get rich, not great odds for the work but apparently it gets in the blood and they love their work, especially because they are working for themselves, and everybody loves living in Lightning Ridge mainly because of the community spirit. Our next tour was the Red Door Tour where we stopped briefly to read the plaque on the site of the first 1906 settlement, before passing the home built of stone and bottles and then onto the equally ugly Ridge Castle a home built of stones and flagons where I felt compelled to take photos. Driving on we passed Sim’s Hill the highest point in the district at 170metres above sea level. After passing the KFC drive through sign we drove onto Amigo’s Castle a private home single-handedly built of ironstone which was commenced in 1981. We paid $15 each to go through the castle which still isn’t finished but there has been a huge amount of work to get it to this stage. On our way back we passed the Bottle House and Kangaroo Hill both attractions with antiques and collectibles but we didn’t stop here. Our third tour for the morning was the Yellow Door Tour, we passed the Big Opal mine a machine dug mine but we had seen one and didn’t feel the need to visit another. Our drive took us past various pieces of mining equipment and stone Miner’s cottages from earlier times that were built by the miners themselves. The off-grid miners camps use solar power, generators, wind power and even candles. We passed an art gallery an opal centre and some vertical shafts which we could have explored but climbing down a ladder into the mine was a bit too adventurous for us. There is a walk here to Nettleton, the second settlement on the diggings but apart from that we were mainly driving old buildings, regenerated opal fields and a graveyard of rusty treasures, everywhere you looked there was evidence of mining and camp life, we drove back to town from here. The fourth tour of the day was the Green Door Tour which we left until after 5.00pm because the end of the track on this tour is where you view the sunset. Our destination was Nettleton’s First Shaft Lookout where we parked and I walked back to the monument to read it before walking over to the stone labyrinth, some people feel this labyrinth is a spiritual place and there were a few people walking it when we arrived. There is also a Beer Can House that I had a look through before we settled in to wait for sunset. It took quite a while for the colours to come through and the best of it we saw on our drive back home.

We have set today aside for the Orange Car Door Explorer Tour, we were told this could take you a full day depending on how much time you spent at each spot, there was a lot to see but we completed the tour in four hours. As with each one of these tours it is not really that easy to find the starting point but once you do it is fairly easy to follow the doors around. We took a guess on the starting point using all the maps we were given and thankfully found our way to the number one door which is just outside Cumborah. This was our favourite tour and was the best insight to life on the opal fields. We passed the Grawin Store where services include fuel and basic goods and then we drove onto The Club in The Scrub which is a registered sports club so it is necessary to sign in, I should elaborate here to explain that these buildings have been built by the miners and are put together from old corrugated iron, metal, wood and practically any thing else lying around to form a ‘building’, there is a golf course here but the tees look very short. We passed the Stone House or Castle and the airstrip and then two giant dumps of opal dirt that were higher than the trees. We stopped at the Sheepyard Inn and had a look around, this was very busy at the time because a couple of buses had just pulled in and they were ordering lunch. We drove past Ned’s used car lot which is other words a junk yard of old trucks and equipment and then onto the Hilton Hotel where we stopped for a drink, I had a sauvignon blanc as usual but it was served in a plastic cup with a lid with the motif of the Hilton at Glengarry on the side, a nice little souvenir. We visited the war memorial that was built by the opal miners Many of the miners who built this memorial are Vietnam vets, apparently there is a big population living here, but the memorial and minute museum are a tribute to all vets. We wandered down to Lake Beard which is behind the memorial, there was a family down on the other side searching for yabbies and they were having lots of success, it was fun to watch. From here we drove back to the bitumen road to head off home.

Today didn’t quite start out as expected. We have not had good internet service for the time we have been here so I have struggled with my blog and in the end gave up and have just been writing to notes and saving that until we can get somewhere with better service. Just to add to the agony I opened up my emails to find I had some business issues I had to take care of, then the power at the park went off so we ended up with a complete change of plans for the day. We could not make a coffee at home so thought we would pick that up in town before driving to the Visitor Centre to see if they could help out with scanning and emailing the items that I needed to take care of. They were very obliging and we were soon on our way back home to try to sort through what needed doing before driving back to the Visitor Centre to send off the final documents. There wasn’t much left of the morning because I had needed to do washing and or course the power wasn’t working so was trying to take care of this in between other things I needed to take care of. Then we couldn’t find the meat I wanted for dinner and we called into the IGA in town to purchase other items. Finally we had everything sorted and because there wasn’t much left of the morning I chose a couple of attractions to visit. One was the John Murray Art Gallery, his work is all around town and I find it quite appealing so I was interested in going through his gallery. It is free to enter and I wasn’t disappointed with the work. It is a small exhibition with the main room dedicated to his usual work and then there is another room where the work is a bit different. I loved all of it and was pleased I took the time to visit, of course I couldn't take photos but if you are interested it is well worth googling. After this we visited one of the opal shops in town, I didn’t want to buy anything but I just thought you can’t visit Lightning Ridge without looking through one of the outlets. Herman’s was where we chose and Herman was in attendance and looked after us, he explained the process of producing a jewel from the opals and we found this very interesting. We drove back to the van from here for lunch. It is quite cool outside today so I have decided to stay inside and try to work through all my photos so that I can upload them hopefully on our next stop. We are moving on tomorrow to Bourke and plan to stay there for four days.