ROMA

We  left Lightning Ridge in pouring rain and it stayed that way all day. We had intended to stay the night at St George but decided to plough onto Roma. To our amazement we found all three caravan parks were booked out, so we had to set up camp at the Roma showgrounds and we were not the only ones. We still had power and showers and toilets so all was not lost.


Looks like we are at the starting gates!

Roma's claim to fame is it's the first place in Australia where underground natural gas and oil was discovered here early in the 20th century. When they first discovered the gas the towns folk were not sure what to do about it. Five years after the find they decided to connect the town up to the gas. It was connected and the town was aglow. After just ten days the gas ran out! They had wasted all that gas in the previous five years. Eventually they found more and all was not lost.



Monument to Miners

There is an excellent interactive display showing the history of the discovery until to the present day. There is also a sound and light show each evening. They are now searching for and extracting coal seam gas.


The Big Rig

Some of the machinery used in the discovery of the oil and gas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is were they held the sound and light show.

It appears the gremlins have not quite left us alone. Saturday afternoon we discovered we had a slow leak in one of our tyres! It had a nail in it. Having planned on leaving on Sunday we had to delay that as we had to wait until Monday to have the tyre repaired. 



LIGHTNING RIDGE

Left Mudgee for Lightning Ridge via an overnight stay at Coonamble. As it was only going to be a short drive from Coonamble to Lightning Ridge, there was no need to get up early, and when we did finally get ready to leave we discovered that the car battery was as dead as a dodo! Fortunately it did not take long for the NRMA to come and jump start us so that we could be on our way.

On the approach to Lightning Ridge we came across Stanley which is an 18 metre high sculpture of an emu made of steal and old Volkswagen parts.

Lightning Ridge is an opal mining town and the only place in the world were you can find Black Opal. There is no commercial mining here only small leases are available which effectively cuts out the big guys. That means people like us have as much chance as anyone to discover opals.

Black opals are not really black. The 'black' part is the backing on the back of the coloured part of the stone. This is what brings out the colour. Naturally occurring opals with a black backing are priceless. Man made 'black opals' are less valuable but by no means less beautiful.

There are 80 different nationalities here and around 35 spoken languages. The population is around 2600 but probably as many as 4000 in the surrounding area.

There are many interesting places to visit and they have a unique system for self drive tours. It is called Car Door Tours. You purchase a sheet showing you the four different routes depicting four different areas of the town providing information on what you see along the way. Each route has a different colour. All you have to do is follow a particular colour car door.



The picture above and to the right is of a house built of beer cans in 1977. Would have to say a lot of beer was drunk to build it. You can also see through the 'window' the desolate landscape around.

An opal mine is a narrow shaft approx. 1 metre square (very little wriggle room). They are quite deep as you have to dig through the sandstone layer until you get to the clay layer where the opal is. Once there you then have to dig the clay and get it to the top. The picture opposite shows a mine shaft with a automatic hoists to get the clay up and into the truck. The clay then has to be washed to expose the opal. Old cement mixers are used to wash the clay. There is an amazing amount of rusty old cement mixers, trucks and old machinery just lying around all over the place.


Lightning Ridge also has it's share of eccentrics. Two of which built but didn't finish amazing structures which are now heritage listed so that they will not be pulled down as they sit on mining leases.

Royal Air Mail Daily Delivery

Amigo's Castle

The first one is Amigo's Castle. This is a private home single-handedly built of ironstone. Started in 1981 and inspired y Roman ruins in northern Italy, near Amigo's birthplace. Underground there are trap doors, dungeons and tunnels incorporated as part of Amigo's mine He also has a great sense of humour judging by some of the signs around the castle.



Winner Tour de France 1896

Astronomers Monument

The second is an amazing concrete Astronomers' Monument'. It was built by a man called Alex (not his real name) who was wrongfully jailed and spent 4 years and 8 months in jail before being pardoned. He then made his way to Lightning Ridge where he built his 'concrete folly' by using left over concrete from other jobs around town. It has lots of inscriptions in the concrete in memory of famous astronomers. He called himself the second Robinson Crusoe. No one is quite sure why.


Another very interesting tour is to the Chambers of the Black Hand. This truly is something to see. Forty feet below the ground is a series of tunnels with carvings of a 10ft Buddha, Angels, Jungle cats, Super Heroes and much much more. The artist has been doing this as a hobby for the past 15 years and has only been persuaded in the last few years to open it up to the public. He also mines for opals as well.

Mining Tools

Mine Tunnel



These are my favourites.

 

 

 

These are just some of the pictures I took at this incredible place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This church was purposely built for the movie 'Goddess of 1967' a weird art house movie.

It sits out in the middle of nowhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Fred Bodel who lived in this 'house' died at the age of 96 worth millions!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A visit to the John Murray Art Gallery is also a must. He has some very funny paintings.



 

 

MUDGEE

When we left Cowra heading for Mudgee it was a bright sunny morning, but when we were approaching Bathurst it became very foggy and chilly. Leaving Bathurst and the fog behind we continued on towards Mudgee. We stopped at a little place called Ilford and discovered this plaque at a rest area.

The next day was a housekeeping day. Catching up with the washing and ironing, boring chores that even though you are on holidays you can never get away from! Also caught up with the shopping and had a stroll through the town.

Mudgee is a reasonable sized town and is renowned for its wineries - 40 in total - and is also a great tourist attraction. The 'Mudgee Small Farm Field Days' were being held this weekend so the town was fairly busy. Field Days are like a country fair with a lot of emphasis on farm machinery. 

General Store

Saturday saw us head of early for a drive to the tourist towns of Hill End and Sofala. These two towns are old gold mining towns set in fairly hilly countryside. There are only a few of the original buildings still standing in Hill End.

Post Office

 
 











Where as in Sofala the main street which is quite narrow is pretty well still intact.



 

Sunday we headed off to visit Gulgong another old gold mining town as well as the birthplace of Henry Lawson's mother. Now the mines around the town are coal mines. Apparently there is a very good living to be had working in them.














Henry Lawson and some of the old buildings of the town featured on Australia's first $10 note. When they featured this building on the note they cropped out the top half of wording on the building because it mentioned 'America'!

There was also an excellent display of the life and times of Henry at the 'Henry Lawson Centre'. His mother was a very domineering woman and suffragette and had little time for Henry.

 

After lunch we drove to look at 'The Drip' which is situated on the Goulburn River. The river meanders through spectacular gorges and grassy banks. Clear spring water drips from a tall cliff above a rocky bed on the Goulburn River, hence the name. The walk was 1.5 kilometres in and was very picturesque with lots of ferns, on the rock faces as well as on the ground. Rock Orchids also grow here but were not in flower at this time.

Home to Cowra

Friday 5th July

Our first day on the road was just a leisurely drive to Wangaratta. We stayed at the Painters Island Caravan Park which was ok.

Next morning we set off for Wagga Wagga a town we have never been to before. It has a population of 47,000 people and is the largest inland city in NSW.



Our caravan park was on the banks of the Murrumbidgee and was pretty busy as there was a hockey tournament on in town.

Part of Aboriginal Mural

We visited the 'Museum of the Riverina', The Art Gallery and the National Art Glass Gallery which showcases a wonderful collection of studio glass over a long period of time. Some of the pieces were very beautiful.

The picture opposite is part of a mural painted on the side of the wall of the Wagga Wagga Library.



Civic Centre on the Wollundary Lagoon

COWRA
We arrived in Cowra mid afternoon on a lovely sunny day only to discover the overnight temperature was expected to be -3 degrees!

Cowra is famous for having a POW Camp during the Second World War. It housed Italians, Indonesians, and 1104 Japanese prisoners of war. In 1944 the Japanese POW's staged a breakout, henceforth known as the Cowra Breakout. The Cowra information centre has a great interpretive hologram display of this incident.

We have visited the Japanese War Cemetery,

the site of the POW Camp,

 

and the Japanese Gardens which were lovely and would be really beautiful in Springtime when the cherry trees would be in blossom.

Cowra is situated on the Lachlan River and on the main bridge into town the pylons have been decorated by a local aboriginal artist depicting the history of the Wiraduri people.

Cowra is also home to the World Peace Bell which is an exact replica of the one at the United Nations. It was awarded to Cowra for it's efforts towards world peace.

Cowra's Regional Art Gallery had a very interesting exhibit celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Alice Springs Beanie Festival. I have to say there was some very elaborate and interesting beanies on display.

 Believe or not these are all beanies!

 

 And the tree outside the Gallery had it's winter clothes on..........