Woke up to outside temperature of 9.1° and overcast, we had a few drops of rain around 4am.
I slept like a baby in my sleepingbag. Marg is up and we will start packing up shortly, we need our internet fix first. We hope to leave by 9:00am, we have 316kms to Lightning Ridge.

We left Bourke at 8:58am and headed towards Brewarrina about 98 kms away, the road was all bitumen with a few road works but nothing serious, just drop your speed to 60kph. At Brewarrina, we wandered over to the Brewarrina Fish Traps on the Barwon river, there were birds everywhere fishing. Next stop was at Walgett a further 130kms, we went looking for Betty from Hey Dad TV show, but she wasn't about. Only 70 kms to go, so we drove non stop, arriving at the Opal Caravan park at 1:00pm. The park is very new, all site are drive thru and the amenities are spotless. Another full setup today including the end to stop the wind blowing thorugh the annex.

About mid arvo, we drove into town and checked out the Info Centre, got heaps of things to do, starting with a town tour tomorrow at 1:30pm.
Dinner tonight was just a scratch meal, I had cheese and bikkies and beer. Yumma.

Things to do in Lightning Ridge

• Car Door Tours - 'self drive' tours
• Black Opal Tours - See mines, camps and castles, hear stories and fables of the Ridge and fossick for opal.


Attractions
• Artesians Baths - Over the road.
• Australian Opal Centre - Examine rare opalised fossils from long ago.
• Big Opal - Underground Mine Tour
• Bottle House
• Coopers Cottage - is an authentic abode of the early miner.
• Chambers of The Black Hand - The Egyptian chamber has humorous hieroglyphics and is a replica of an Egyptian tomb.
• Fossicking Heap - Visitor Information Centre
• Visit John Murray's gallery
• Kangaroo Hill Complex - A fabulous display of rocks, minerals, shells, bottles and antiques.
• Historical Society & Heritage Cottage - Local history
• Walk in Mine - Tour of discovery through this original 45 year old opal mine.

Woke up to outside temperature of 6.6°, clear skies and sunny.
It was a cold night, but I was warm as usual, BUT Marg has decided it is time to get her sleeping bag out.
Today, we are booked in for the 1:30pm tour of the town (Black Opal tours) and this morning theere is a free fossicking area in our caravan park, we will play in their sandpit and see if we find a black opal. here's hoping.
Talk later.

Ok, we didn't find any black opals, Bugger. We found white, blue and purple opals, only tiny bits but we still found them. This took about 1.5 to 2 hours, it was back to the van for lunch and walk across to the Office at 1:15pm, our Black opal tour bus arrived and there were 8 of us that got on and then off to the Tourist Centre to pick up our final 2 members, 10 in total. Dave who says that he is a 'poor' miner and was our bus driver which he does for 2 days a week. Some of the places we visited were:

• Amigo's castle - Amigo is one weird dude, he lives out the back of his castle in a caravan.
• Artesian Bore baths - these are 45° pool about 200 meters away from our park. Probably won't use them.
• Fred Bodel's camp - Fred built his 'house' in 1916 and died aged 90 in 1973, rumoured to be a multi-millionaire through opals.
• Flying Potsman's historic red rattler - this is the Black Opal tour's office and where we had afternoon tea.
• Astronomer's Monument - was built by Alex, a Polish dude who was jailed for killing his wife and released 5 years later after being found not guilty.
• Lunatic Hill - the highest hill in Lightning Ridge.

we even stopped to do some fossicking. The tour picked us up from our caravan park and lasted over 3 hours, cost was $25 each (Pensioner rate), it was well worth the money, a great tour.

After arriving back at camp around 4:30pm, we sat outside in the afternoon sun and had a couple of chilled refreshers. Dinner tonight was pies. Yumma.

Tomorrow is a big day. Visit Chambers of the Black hand and then do the car door tours for starters.

Things that we have done, so far, in Lightning Ridge

• Black Opal Tours - See mines, camps and castles, hear stories and fables of the Ridge and fossick for opal.

Attractions
• Fossicking Heap - in our caravan park.

Woke up to outside temperature of 6.3°, clear skies and sunny.
It was a cold night, but I was warm as usual, Marg was warm in her sleeping bag out.

Today, we are booked in for the 10:30am Chamber of the Black Hand tour, we left camp at 10am and drove to the 'Black hand' and met the rest of the people on the tour, there were 12 of us in total. We had to go down 63 steps to the showroom, and then Bob took us for a tour of the mine. You may have noticed on the photos that we were wearing hard hats, thank god. Me, being slightly tall at 6'4", I am not designed to be a miner and I knocked my head numerous times and I couldn't stand upright in much of the mine, Marg, being a short arse, didn't hit her head once, BUT apart from that, the tour was great and what those early miners went through was absolutely hard work. Miners are usually smaller people, so they don't need as large a tunnel as the taller miners, consequently, they don't need to remove as much dirt, so they get to the opals quicker, that's the plan.
After the mine tour we walked around the carvings that Ron Canlin is still creating, he is one extremely talented person. His King Tut carvings were my favourite. His animals were great, basically, they were ALL magic.

After leaving there, we popped into the Lightning Ridge Bowling Club, to suss it out for dinner, the club has pokies, cold beer and cheap meals, so it met all my conditions. Next stop was John Murray gallery. Now this was a bad mistake, we left with a copy of the Birdsville Races, because it had George in it, Caution Cyclists and Are We There Yet with the caravan, total cost if I tell you, Marg will kill me (shhh $67).
While parked there, we checked out about 5 Opal shops, thank God, Marg doesn't like opal. Over to Khan IGA for some shopping (these Khan dudes own 9 IGAs in the area we shopped at their Cobar, Bourke and Lightning Ridge stores). Back at camp, for lunch before we drove to an old couples' shells, gems and minerals collection at Kangaroo Hill. It cost us $5 each and we rang the bell, and an elderly lady (we never did get her name) opened the door and showed us her and her husband's collection, she can certainly talk. We loved it and when you finish her tour, you can fossick on her heap beside her 3 pet kangaroos. We didn't find anything of substance, so we gave it a miss and headed back to camp, to get changed for dinner. We arrived at the LRBC (Lightning Ridge Bowling Club) at 5pm, Marg had an hour on the pokies (and lost), while I lost $2 but I only stayed about 10 minutes, before I could take it no more, a dude 2 machines to my right, must have thought he was still digging for opals, he would hit the buttons with force, making a very loud moise. I had a gutful and went and watched "The price is right' and "deal or No deal" on the big screen, I don't know which was the better. Marg was to meet me about 6pm when the bistro opened, while sitting 'engrossed' with my TV shows, a bus load of oldies (yes, there are people older than Marg still alive) took over tables all around me, my table was surrounded, but I kept drinking my chilled refreshers and watching Tv, until saved by Marg. Dinner was Lamb Cutlets and vegies (Marg) and Chicken Parma with chips and salad (Me), both were very yumma.

After a hectic day, we had an early night (SimonP that means bed by 8:30pm but I am up at 6am writing this)

Tomorrow is another big day. Do the car door tours for starters(we ran out of time yesterday) and then some more fossicking back at our camp heap,before I start packing up..

Things that we have done, so far, in Lightning Ridge

• Black Opal Tours - See mines, camps and castles, hear stories and fables of the Ridge and fossick for opal.

Attractions
• Fossicking Heap - in our caravan park.
• Amigo's castle - Amigo is one weird dude, he lives out the back of his castle in a caravan.
• Artesian Bore baths - these are 45° pool about 200 meters away from our park. Probably won't use them.
• Fred Bodel's camp - Fred built his 'house' in 1916 and died aged 90 in 1973, rumoured to be a multi-millionaire through opals.
• Flying Potsman's historic red rattler - this is the Black Opal tour's office and where we had afternoon tea.
• Astronomer's Monument - was built by Alex, a Polish dude who was jailed for killing his wife and released 5 years later after being found not guilty.
• Lunatic Hill - the highest hill in Lightning Ridge.
• Chambers of The Black Hand - The Egyptian chamber has humorous hieroglyphics and is a replica of an Egyptian tomb.
• Visit John Murray's gallery _ big mistake we bought some reproductions.
• Kangaroo Hill Complex - A fabulous display of rocks, minerals, shells, bottles and antiques.
• Bottle House - drove past - Guess what, it's made from bottles.

Woke up to outside temperature of 7.2°, clear skies and sunny.
It was a cold night, but I was warm as usual, Marg was also warm in her sleeping bag out.

Today, we are left about 10am to drive the coloured car door self drive. We choose the furtherest from camp which is the Green Car door tour, this took us along a gravel road to the 1st Shaft lookout. We were given detailed directions from the Tourist Centre, these driections listed each car door and the distance to the next car door. In Lightning Ridge they tend to use old car doors are signs, wierd in its own way. We eventually got to the end of the Green car door tour and the views from the 1st Shaft lookout were lovely. Our panoramic photos may show a bit of the views. We left the 1st shaft lookout and decided not to drive the other 3 car door tours (blue, red and yellow) as we did them on the Black Opal town tour, so we stopped at the free fossicking heap at the Tourist Info Centre, only found some potch (Australian slang - inferior quality opal used in jewellery for mounting precious opals), so after 30 minutes of fossicking, we decided to head back to camp via Khan' s IGa, BUT as we past a gift shop, Marg wanted to go inside, so in we went and didn't buy anything. Good. Finally did our shop at IGA for dinner tonight, nachos.

After lunch, we decided to re-visit our caravan park's fossicking area, so we did. We drove over the area and fossicked for about an hour, I found some potch and so did Marg, BUT Marg found an opal nobbie, see photo below. She was that excited that she saw Mark (the park owner) in the office and he thought it was an opal, but to be sure, we drove into see Peter at Peter's Opals in L.R. and he confirmed that it is an opal with a bit of green. So Marg and I are very happy, it isn't worth much dollarwise but we found it. Well, Marg did but we won't split straws.
Finally back at camp for the night, I started to pack up forour departure tomorrow.

Tomorrow we are crossing into Queensland and staying at St George for an overnighter about 230kms away.

Things that we have done while in Lightning Ridge

• Black Opal Tours - See mines, camps and castles, hear stories and fables of the Ridge and fossick for opal.

Attractions
• Fossicking Heap - in our caravan park - Marg found an opal nobbie.
• Amigo's castle - Amigo is one weird dude, he lives out the back of his castle in a caravan.
• Artesian Bore baths - these are 45° pool about 200 meters away from our park. Probably won't use them.
• Fred Bodel's camp - Fred built his 'house' in 1916 and died aged 90 in 1973, rumoured to be a multi-millionaire through opals.
• Flying Potsman's historic red rattler - this is the Black Opal tour's office and where we had afternoon tea.
• Astronomer's Monument - was built by Alex, a Polish dude who was jailed for killing his wife and released 5 years later after being found not guilty.
• Lunatic Hill - the highest hill in Lightning Ridge.
• Chambers of The Black Hand - The Egyptian chamber has humorous hieroglyphics and is a replica of an Egyptian tomb.
• Visit John Murray's gallery _ big mistake we bought some reproductions.
• Kangaroo Hill Complex - A fabulous display of rocks, minerals, shells, bottles and antiques.
• Bottle House - drove past - Guess what, it made from bottles.
• Car Door Tours - 'self drive' tours - very interesting.
• Coopers Cottage - is an authentic abode of the early miner. - It is a bit rundown, to say the least.
• Fossicking Heap - Visitor Information Centre - found some potch.

Woke up to outside temperature of 8.8° and clear and sunny.
Still using my sleepingbag as a blanket. We packed up and then we drove over to the dump point and emptied the shitter.

We left Lightning Ridge at 9:07am and headed towards Hebel, 68 kms away, next stop was at Dirranbandi another 66kms away, we stopped at the rest stop and then drove the rest of the distance to St George. During the whole drive, they were quite a few roadworks caused by the recent floods, but in general, it was no drama and took 3hours 24minutes.
We checked in at the Pelican Rest CP and setup the power and water and then drove to downtown St George. Marg had forgotten to bring her hair straighter with her, so we had to buy another one, which we got at Betta Electrical, so Marg was happy and naturally, so was I. We took some photos, refuelled and headed back to camp, by this time, it was late afternoon. Marg prepared dinner, which was a casserole and very YUMMA.
I taped Amazing Race Oz last night, so we will watch it tonight.

Tomorrow we head to Mitchell about 212kms for another overnighter. The forecast for the next 3 days is for showers, we plan to be driving for the next 3 days.

Woke up to outside temperature of 12.3° and it was raining and should rain for the next 3 days.
Last night was very mild and I only used my blankets. We packed up and headed off to Mitchell along the St George-Mitchell road, it was a bugger of a road bitumen all the way, but as it was raining, the shoulders were very muddy, but as there was bugger all traffic, the drive wasn't too bad. We had to slow down numerous times for the kangaroos grazing on the side of the road and another time, we had to come to a halt as the emu wouldn't get off the road. see photo. In Mitchell, there were road works on the main bridge over the Maranoa river, the bridge was wrecked by the Feb 2012 floods, it is unreal how high the water rose. We arrived at Major Mitchell CP at 11:53am. We setup camp, drove into downtown Mitchell, bought some supplies and topped up the fuel then spent the afternoon in the warmth of the van watching the Vicar of Dibley.

Tomorrow, we head to Tambo about 299kms for another overnighter.

It rained all night, but the van was dry and warm. On the ABC radio this morning, they reported that Mitchell had 51mm overnight, I won't argue with that. We packed up during the odd dry spell and left Mitchell about 8;30am. On our way to our first stop at Morven, it pissed down, but stopped while we were at Morven. Morven has a magnificent miniature village, we lasted visited Morven on 14th July 2008, when we visited the miniature village. The rains came again with a beautiful 'black front' and it bucketed down again, so we just slowed and drove to the conditions. The traffic was light again, everyday that we have driven the traffic has been extremely light. Our next stop was at the Augathella where we met a very wide load resting, thankfully, we didn't meet him on the road. There were a couple of red light road works (we had to wait about 5 minutes at each), with about 70kms to go, we came upon 2 other caravanners, so we travelled in convoy all the way to Tambo, nobody was behind us, see I told you that the traffic was light.

We arrived in Tambo at 12;28pm, just short of 4 hours for 299kms, it was still raining, but stopped long enough to do a quick setup (power, water and about 2 foot of awning), I unhitched and drove to the Caltex and topped up for tomorrow's run. While getting diesel, I spoke to a couple that were heading over to WA, so we chatted for 10 minutes, there was no-one waiting for fuel, it was a miserable day, weatherwise.

We were planning to visit the Hotel Tambo about 100 meters from camp, but the rain was persistent, so we made ourselves comfy in the van and watched 'The Vicar of Dibley' and surfed the net. I know what you are thinking.... Yes, It is a hard life, but Marg and I are doing it for the team.
Tonight will be much of the same, but also it will be an early night.

Tomorrow, we head to Barcaldine about 209kms for another overnighter.

We were buggered last night, so it was an early night (Simon that's 8:30pm), we slept extremely well. Strange that we were both awake about 5:45am, looked outside and it was foggy, very foggy, pea soup fog. Anyway, I thought that I will just drive slowly for the conditions, SO started to packup about 8am, when speaking with Jimmy next door, he asked me which way were we heading I said 'North', he said you won't be going anywhere, as the Barcoo river has washed away the temporary access road beside the main bridge, which is being repaired. Our dilemma is how long do we wait or do we go another route to Barcaldine. The alternate route is back via Roma, Emerald approx 1,100kms or do we wait. We haven't packed up yet, so I asked the CP owner when do we have to be gone, 10am. Marg and I decided to go for a drive out to see the wash away and take photos, we got no further than 2kms North of Tambo when we came to a halt. The road is blocked completely with trucks and cars as further as the eye could see into the pea soup fog. We turned around and headed back to camp, walked up to the local Foodworks and bought some food supplies, just in case, we were trapped forever. We then decided to fill in some time by walking up the street in downtown Tambo, there was a concentration of people out the front of the Foodworks and that was it, bearing in mind, that it is Sunday morning and all of Tambo are probably at Church. Back at camp, after seeing that every business in the main street is closed except for the Pub, we paid for another night in the lovely town of Tambo. Our CP is nearly full and it isn't even midday.
Our CP hung out the 'No Vacancy' sign for both the Van park and Motel by early afternoon. SO you may ask where does everyone else go, good question, the Police are stationed at south end of Tambo and telling all the truckies and caravanners that they can park down near the lake and in any side street, just don't block any drives etc. The latest estimate is that there are about 100 trucks, ranging from semis, B doubles and B triples.
Marg and I walked the main street again to fill in some time, had some chips at Fanny Mae and then visited the pubs. A funny sight was all these truckies sitting at the public bars drinking 'light' beer, of course, the odd one was drinking spirits. The rest of the day was spent on the net and talking to various neighbours, before we prepared an absolute gourmet meal for dinner, Spagetti on toast out of a can. YUMMA.

Our next official update is due at 9am in the morning.
Tomorrow, we plan to drive directly to Winton for a 3 night stop, that's assuming that we can get over the Barcoo River. Realistically, if the road is opened, it will take quite awhile to get over the river and then you are in a very large convoy, so we may not get to Winton, so be it.