Day 237 - St George to Dirrinbandi, Hebel and Lightning Ridge

Well, we did bring some rain last night to St George and when we awoke this morning the whole place looked refreshed.  Our task today was to travel around 235km to Lightning Ridge via Dirranbandi and Hebel but we were amused, even before we started, by a bird which tried to peck to death, its image in the car mirror.  He tried for 45 minutes and then we just had to leave. The mirror was a mess.

291114 How come the other guy doesn't have trouble hanging on?

291114 Hate the guy in the mirror

It was a fine day and in the early part anyway, cooler because of the rain.

Dirranbandi is a small town and its only obvious point of interest was a bronze statue, in the main street, of Tom Dancey, an aboriginal runner who won the Stawell Gift in 1910.  There may be more of historical value of course but we did not take the time to investigate.

291114 Tom Dancy, born in Hebel in 1888 and won Stawell gift in 1910
aged 22 years. He was the second aboriginal runner to do this

291114 The Dirran Pub in Dirranbandi.  Everything there is abbreviated to Dirran

291114 The main street in Dirranbandi

Hebel, on the NSW/Queensland border, is an even smaller town with its claim to fame being a old hotel with original hitching rails intact.  We were amused by the white damask table cloth over the table outside the local store.

291114 Another border crossing - from Queensland

291114 The Hebel Hotel built circa 1888 with original hitching rails out front

291114 The General Store at Hebel near the NSW/Queensland border

We passed through some sad country once again but in spite of this, there were some wild flowers on the roadside and some trees were in flower.

291114 Wildflowers on the road to Dirrinbandi

291114 Typical countryside.  No wonder graziers have destocked

291114 A flowering tree near Hebel 

291114 A flowering tree near Hebel.  Note the thin leaves

Lightning Ridge appeared out of the desolation and, boy, it is something different. 

291114 Old cement mixer tank used to separate the opal from
the clay by sluicing

291114 The main street in Lightning Ridge

Lightning Ridge doesn't have the huge mullock heaps that we saw at Cober Pedy.  Rather, there are smaller humps of clay with houses built in between.  Some of these houses are extreme. There do not seem to be any building codes in the place and the roads run higgledy piggledy between the mines and the houses.  Most houses look rather dilapidated and as for lawns, fences or gardens, forget it.

291114 (The fence surrounding) the artesian hot baths 

291114 The Black Queen, a private home made out of recyclables

291114 The Ridge Castle, a miner's home

291114 Amigo's Castle, singlehandedly built of ironstone and inspired
by Roman ruins in Northern Italy

291114 Astronomers' Monument, a curious concrete folly, with a temple of
inscriptions in memory of famous astronomers

291114 "Pony Fence Mine" one of the earliest diggings 

291114 A private home amongst the diggings 

291114 The Bottlehouse Mining Museum 

In spite of these shortcomings, the opals found here are the famous black opals and we may see some of these tomorrow.

We are pleased to say we made it back to the van before we were set upon by a voluminous black cloud spitting lightning and hurrah, hurrah, rain.  It has been raining already for 30 minutes and, while this won't resolve the drought, it will refresh the place, and the people, for tomorrow.

291114 From our caravan at 5.30pm EAST