Queensland – Mar 2022 – Lightning Ridge

Time to leave Nyngan Weir and head to our next stop of Lightning Ridge. This is actually a little out of our way but is one of those outback towns that is on most people’s lists.

Walgett

There weren’t a whole lot of places to stop on this leg, but our one stop was at Walgett. Here we visited the painted water tower, visited the local IGA for lunch and fuelled up. Prior to visiting, the only thing I knew about Walgett was that it was the home of the fictional character Betty Wilson from the TV sit-com Hey Dad..!

Lightning Ridge

From Walgett, it’s just shy of 80 kms up the Castlereagh Highway to Lightning Ridge. Arriving mid-afternoon, it was hot. Dry and hot. When checking in at the Lightning Ridge Holiday Park we noticed a discrepancy in our travel plans. We intended to arrive at a friend’s home in Toowoomba on Saturday the 12th, but today was only Tuesday the 8th and we had only 2 days travel time to that destination. We had no clue how we had miscalculated, and would likely have stayed at least 1 extra night in Broken Hill had we noticed, but here we are. 3 nights in Lightning Ridge it is! It was time we had a break from driving every day in any case.

Not knowing what there might be to do here we asked at the caravan park office. We were told the first thing we should see is sunset from Nettleton’s first shaft lookout. This is, apparently, part of the Green Car Door Tour, which we didn’t do, but we did see a green car door on our way to the lookout. To say the sunset view was awesome is an understatement.

Day 1

Our first full day here was mostly spent relaxing. All those days in the car can wear you down. Megan did get a bit of work done and even met up with a potential customer.

We did visit one local tourist site this day, an old shack on the main road through town called Cooper’s Cottage.

Day 2

Our final full day was also spent relaxing, but we also found some time to go opal shopping. After all, that’s what Lightning Ridge is famous for, right… opals! We had to stick to the low grade items, but promised ourselves we’d be back for the good stuff once we hit it big. 😛

Later in the evening, Megan felt in need of a dip, so we headed to the local Bore Baths. She enjoyed it so much we also headed back there the next morning as well.

Leaving Day

After the morning dip at the baths, we hitched up and headed to one last local stop before leaving… an old opal mine now converted into a tour. We were going to tie Neo up outside the store at this mine tour, but the owners said he was welcome to join us. He didn’t much like the steep, uneven stairs going down into the mine, but he was fine once inside.

Bye from Lightning Ridge.