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.....