The Ridge of Destiny
by David Potts
Lightning Ridge welcomes people from all walks of life to try their luck on the gemfields. You don't have to be eccentric to live in Lightning Ridge. But it helps.
Being eccentric and having a sense of humour are almost prerequisites on these opal fields in western New South Wales, on the edge of the Outback.
Nobody really knows how many live here in this place the locals call simply "the Ridge". Maybe six to eight thousand?
There are 7,000 postal addresses but only 3,000 on the electoral roll. Pity the poor postman who has to deliver to addresses where there are no recognisable streets, no house numbers and the occupants of homes on the old diggings are known often only by first names or nicknames.
The dream of finding opals has brought hopefuls to Lightning Ridge from all over the world. About eight in ten were born outside Australia. In fact, the town claims at least 52 different nationalities.
Many came as holidaymakers to prospect and never left or couldn't stay away - hooked on the hope that the next bucketful of dirt contained their fortune. Some came to escape another life; others just because they are different.
Fortunes have been made by a few lucky opal miners. In fact, the Ridge claims to have more millionaires per head of population than anywhere else in Australia. Many more miners, however, earn nothing more than a wage. Others rely on social security. But appearances can be deceptive: the guy with the seat out of his pants could be one of the town's millionaires.
The best time to visit Lightning Ridge is between Easter and October. There's really only one way to see the Ridge and learn about its colourful past and to meet some of its oddball residents, and that's to take a three-hour tour with Lightning Ridge Outback Opal tours. Our guide, Eddie, has spent a lifetime here and knows its identities and plenty of opal stories.
Or if you want to do a self-drive tour, pick up a 'Car Door Explorer' tour map at the visitor information centre. Yes, car doors: there are four routes, each marked by numbered car doors painted in different colours. The routes wind around the five kilometres of old workings, past places with names that reflect the character of the Ridge - Lunatic Hill, Pig Hill and Nudey's Paradise among them.
There are visual experiences at Lightning Ridge that you'll find nowhere else: the sprawling opal fields and the mounds of discarded pinky-white clay that lie like giant molehills in between miners' claims and their homes, or camps, as they call them.
No work for an architect here. Miners' campes are built of any scrap material to be had. Stone, tin, old timber, boxes... Old car doors make good windows when you can wind them up and down.
The black opal is the rarest opal and, some say, the most beautiful of all gems. It was first discovered at Lightning Ridge in the 1880's and the first recorded mineshaft was sunk in 1901. Lightning Ridge now produces about half the world's supply.
Typical of the miners is Patrick. "We keep going, looking for a fortune in the next shovelful of dirt. It is madness but it is my life."
No visit would be complete, of course, without a visit to a mine. The 'Walk In Mine' closed as a working mine several decades ago but has been reopened for visitors. Our tour took us down deep into the workings. It was obviously once incredibly hard work. Miners used pick and shovel, working in cramped shafts up to 25 metres underground. Today, jackhammers are used.
We meet Amigo. That's not his real name. He came from Italy via Melbourne about 25 years ago to prospect. He still mines or "just shifts dirt", living in hope of that big find. His spare time is spent single-handedly building Amigo's castle.
Vaguely Mediterranean in appearance, the rambling stone seems to have no design or purpose. But it has recently been declared a heritage building. Underground there are trap doors, dungeons and tunnels as part of Amigo's mine.
Nearby is a house made of thousands of bottles. Then there's a huge, odd-shaped monument to astronomers - a bizarre concrete folly in the gem fields. The latter was built by a late Polish migrant who is said to have fled to the Ridge after serving time in prison. The monument has also been given heritage listing.
And we meet Soapy. You guessed it: so-called because he rarely uses soap.
Even the local swimming pool has an oddball look about it: a theme park with colourful waterslides and grotesque animals.
Nobody expresses the local sense of humour better than artist John Murray. His zany, cartoon-like Australian animals and wry Outback humour make his works popular with visitors, especially Europeans who snap up his art. He has a gallery at 8 Opal Street.
The local bank is one of the busiest in the state, as is the local bowling club with 3500 members (when the bank runs out of money, it borrows from the bowling club).
You'll be given time to do a bit of prospecting yourself. Who knows, you might turn up a black opal.
At the end of a packed day visit the Ridge's outdoor hot mineral baths - open 24 hours - for a relaxing soak. The water comes from around a kilometre below ground in the Great Artesian Basin at a constant temperature of 41.5C.
Source: Adapted from an article in the Sunshine Coast Daily, June 3, 2007.