Date: 6th June 2020
Travelled: 75 kms Walgett to Lightning Ridge in the North-West Region of New South Wales
Visited: Lightning Ridge
Stayed: Lightning Ridge Holiday Park $33 with all services. S29.428388, E147.980913
Budget: NA
Itโs only a relatively short 75 kms from Walgett to Lightning Ridge, for us there is a 15 kms backtrack along the Gwydir Highway (we drove yesterday) before turning north on the Castlereagh Highway. Surprisingly there is more traffic along the Castlereagh than weโve seen since Tamworth. Why is such a small isolated place so popular ? Lightning Ridge is the only place in the world where black opals are found. In Australian folk lore it has something of a mythical reputation.
Lightning Ridge has five different campsites and caravan parks to choose from. We try the closest to the centre of town first as it has some good reviews. They only have 3 vacancies and we take one of them. We find ourselves surrounded by tuggers (caravaners and their 4X4s). There are a few motorhomes parked over one side but they are travelling as a group apparently.
They are all grey nomads basically. No ones talking about work or buying a new ski-boat or Harley Davidson. Itโs all about getting the most out of the pension, the benefits of the health care card and spending the kids inheritance. The common theme however is their dislike of Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk. Basically everyone we talk to wants to be in North Queensland or the Northern Territory and blame her personally for maintaining the closed border.
Anyway itโs a beautiful sunny day and time for a walk around town to get our bearings and find a good coffee.
Looking up Opal Street 
Artesian Bore Baths sound good.
Every house or building in Lightning Ridge seems to be โfor saleโ or has a hand painted sign out the front selling something to do with opal or souvenirs. There are one or two nicer places selling some very expensive jewellery. Half the shops are closed or locked up. Then again no one has been able to visit the place for 8 weeks.
Back from our walk we lunch and relax until the artesian baths re-open at 2pm. Situated a couple of kms out of town we decide to ride the bikes. It is 3 eye burrs heaven out here but we risk a puncture and ride out.
We walk up to the bowling club as the sunsets. Luckily we were relatively early, getting a seat in the bistro, with the covid the club can only have 150 patrons and only 50 in the bistro. So we sat around chatting to a couple we met at the baths, earlier today. Enjoying a drink before walking back to the camper.
So that was our day in Lightning Ridge…Bourke tomorrow.
Michael + Pam
3 thoughts on “Lightning Ridge, New South Wales ๐ฆ๐บ 2020”
What is it with these Premiers of unspellable names and their totalitarian streaks!
I’m sorry, but you know that we have been trying for ages to find a legitimate reason for keeping the cockroaches out of cane toad country – Anna Alphabet (as we all know her) couldn’t help herself! Seriously, I know a lot of local businesses up here with their fingers crossed that they are going to survive until the southern grey nomads are allowed back in. We all wish she would put a border around Brisbane and the SE Corner and let the rest of Qld get on with things. There are quite a few Qlders who wish she would do this permanently: we have one small pocket of city/citified beaches; and one huge area of regional and rural communities which have little in common with the city people. Don’t we hate them hogging all the money and usually dictating to us from a place of complete ignorance! Maybe we could just change the border and pop Morton Bay into NSW again – that would be fun!
Wow love that blog … hopefully the town flourishes again as tourists return