Lightning Ridge………………………Day 81

Friday the 13th.

This morning I woke up to see this beautiful sunrise.

We had decided to get an early start in case it rained. We were going to do the self drive Yellow Car Door tour.

The tour of the south-west area of town takes in the 3 Mile Opal field, (the largest of the ‘Town Fields’), the 3-Mile open cut, Lunatic Hill, 4 Mile Opal Field, and the  “Goddess of 1967” Church.”

“The Goddess of 1967”  is a 2000 Australian film about a rich young Japanese man, who travels to Australia with the intention of buying a Citroën DS car  that he has found for sale on the net. Once there things do not quite go as planned ... and he ends up on a road journey with a blind girl .The film was partly filmed in and around Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, Australia. This old church was used in the film.

The end of this tour was when we arrived at the rest stop where “Stanley” stands. Created by John Murray, Stanley is made up of a couple of  VW cars and other odds and ends.

You can see the size as compered to our vehicle.

Across the road was a rest area with a toilet. What was unusual was the way you light the toilet is you use it at night. The car lights are shone on the bottom shiny panel which reflects in the small shiny panel at the top which throws light into the toilet.

After we had done this we decided to visit the “3 Pubs In the Scrub”. This is a great day out visiting the three pubs in the middle of the Grawin Opal Fields! The sheepyard Inn; Grawin Club in the Scrub and the Glengarry Hilton. These three pubs were all built around the time the Opal Rush was on, as they had to try and accommodate all the miners that were mining out there during the rush. All the pubs are still working pubs.

We had lunch at the Grawin Club which is next to a golf course in the middle of the bush. We saw opal diggings everywhere.

After getting lost and ending up at someone’s opal lease, a lady kindly sorted out our directions and we finally were on the road to the Sheepyard Inn. We first saw the War Memorial just a short distance from the Sheepyard Inn.

The Sheepyard Inn……..

……………….and then we came to The Hilton.

It was almost 70 kms home (our caravans) where we found it was raining. It hasn’t rained here very much for 2 years and now it has been constantly raining 5 hours. (……….and my window continues to leak).