Opal Fields to Home via Kamilaroi Country

Back of Beyond!!!!

From outback pub to outback pub. We love them all. We've met some great characters with plenty of stories to tell and from all corners of Australia. Nindigully is one of my favorites.

We've stopped behind pubs and next to billabongs, in showgrounds and also the occasional caravan park. They've all been part of this amazing journey. As we made our way to Lightning Ridge and The Grawlin Opal fields

This area is just so out there!Even though we've been here before I still love it . It couldn't be more different from home. I'll just let the pictures tell the story.

The Ridge is relatively civilised compared to Grawlin!

There are weird and wonderful sights everywhere and heaps to do. One of our best nights was going to The Black Opal Queen Theatre It's just extraordinary. A house built with 14,000 coloured bottles..... Enchanting stories told by Gail the owener about how she came to buy this house and about the woman who built it all by herself and is now recognised in the Pioneers Hall of Fame. Then we saw their priceless collection of antique lamps. They even handed some around one being 4,000 years old and another was 100 years older then Christ!   I was so scared I'd drop it! Most of them were lit and we listened to stories of who owned these lamps. This was better than any museum. 

  

This beautiful sculpture is Stanley the Emu. It's on the road out of The Ridge and is massive. The body is an old VW beetle.

Now for Grawlin Opal fields. Which is like Lightning Ridge was 50 years ago. This is real Wild West country!! There are 2 pubs here : The Glengarry Hilton and the Sheep Yard  both just shacks in the middle of nowhere.

Then there's the Club in the Scrub. This is the entrance 

Below is some random photos of this area. 

Half the cars and trucks aren't even registered.

Here's Steve going through rocks from the Mullock heap in hope of finding an opal or two. No Luck!!!

 This is the giant mullock heap and there's another one just as big. The photo above we rode up to the top and the photo below is all the crush rock that makes up the mullock.

We finally left this area and headed for some R & R at the artesian pools at Pilliga. A beautiful 37 degrees of constantly flowing hot springs.

This is where we went for a 7 km bike ride past wild horses and a herd of bulls with horns!!! Not exactly past the bulls as we realised we had ridden off on the wrong track and there was no way we would trust these bulls so we high tailed it out of there!!!

On Tuesday we arrived at Narrabri and the storms rolled in. It made for some great pictures though....

The rain has stopped so for a bit of sightseeing. We drove out to the Sawn Rocks an amazing cliff wall  of  basalt pentagonal shaped pipes.

Next day back to beautiful sunshine so we take off on our KTM to ride up to the summit of Mount Kuputar. By rhe time we got to the top at 15200 metres through a beautiful mountain rangeit was absolutely freezing but certainly worth it.

  We then rode back to the van packed up and headed for Baradine and made one stopover at the Sandstone caves. Amazing colours and at least we're getting plenty of exercise hiking to see these wonderful places. This is what I would expect to see in Northern Terrirory, just a lot closer to home...

We arrived in Baradine  and there is so much to see other than the pub  that we stay for 3 nights camping at the showground which has pretty good facilities and we are the only ones there. Cold nights but a fire, red wine and music to keep us warm Plus the days are beautiful. 

Next day we go off to see the Sculptures in the Scrub which can you believe are 40ks off in the Piliga Scrub then a couple of kilometer hike along a ridge then down through Dandry Gorge . Once again well worth the effort. Look at these beautiful sculptures  

 Last day at Baradine so we head off on the bike to explore the Warrumbungles. The gods have blessed us again with another perfect day. I feel like we were riding through the Rockies , amazing rock outcrops from a long ago volcanic eruption. It was so beautiful but these photos just  don't do it justice.

Our holiday is just about over, we're heading off to visit our close friends Sue & Craig then home in a few days. Once again a wonderful holiday seeing some of our beautiful great country. Until next time.....

The Louth Races and The Real Outback...

All ready to rock and roll!!!

 A week before we left on our Outback Adventure , Steve fitted a you beaut gas heater, as up northwest the nights are still freezing but the days are warm and sunny. We took off with the caravan full and our adventure bike on the back of the ute. Always good for getting around.

 First stop was Wellington where the temperature dropped to -3!!!! Luckily we had the heater because after this stop it never worked again! After much internet searching, we found out we needed a high flow gas regulator and none was to be found!

We had a one night stopover at Cobar on the Newey Reservoir. A very nice town with it's main claim to fame being a giant open cut copper mine not very pretty is it?. The Reservoir was a  free camp with great facilities.

Finally we reached Louth as we'd been looking forward to meeting up with our mates from Currarong for a 4 day party at The famous Louth Races. What an amazing atmopshere. ,5000 people  rock into this one horse town that barely has a population of 100 camping on what ever spare ground they can find. Camp fires are blazing night and day, music blaring, and tall tales being spun with plenty of laughter. Just our type of town.

As you can see the Fashions on the Field were spectacular. 

The races were packed  there were atleast 14 bookmakers and plenty of mug punters .

And best of all Steve and I picked the winner of the Louth Cup. I had a few other wins as well and it paid for my grog, sorry I can't say the same for Smally!

The Louth township had a top pub The Shindys Inn. We spent most of Sunday arvo here of course.

  Plus the cemetery where there is a gorgeous granite monument to Mary Matthews which is supposed to light up at sunset. Afraid we didn't catch it.

 

The Darling river is looking very poorly as this area is crying out for rain. The last time they had any rain at all was 6 months ago! 

On Monday, 6 of us moved 20 kms on to Trilby Station, while the rest of our mates went on their separate ways. Trilby is a working sheep station right on the Darling river which opens its gates to travellers offering cheap camping and accommodation. It's a beautiful property but unfortunately drought ravished.

After a few cold days exploring this beautiful area we moved on to Cunnamulla before the rains hit. Yes we've done it again just call us "the drought breakers" last time we were up in this area it was the beginning of the 2010 floods which broke a 10 year drought!!

Cunnamulla greatest claim to fame is the Cunnamulla Fella which is a song made famous by Slim Dusty.

 

Next stop Nindigully pub and after that who knows where so I'll blog again in a week or so....