Lightning Ridge

After finishing up work i mentioned to kristy lightning ridge is only 120ks down the road lets go and have a look so here we are at lightning ridge and i must say i am happy we took the time to come and have a look at this unique place from the opal mining to the artesian hot pools its not a bad little town to visit with a great van park.  Yesterday we went to a place called the black hand opal mine which is a mine started a long time ago and the miner when bored would sit in cave and carve things into the walls which are sandstone it is now a tourist attraction and well worth the visit its 100 foot down and you put a hard hat on and walk down all these stairs to the main cave where the carvings are its 16 degrees down there and they have a very impressive range of opals for sale there was one opal worth 44k down there crazy stuff.  We were let free to roam the various tunnels and caves that he had dug out and carved things into and some of the pieces are amazing.

 

 

They also have what they call door tours here there is 4 colours we done both green red and yellow tours on the green tour it took us to a lookout where they reckon they have pulled enough opal out of this area to pay to rebuild the gold coast skyline there was a house built out of beer cans and bottles that was built in 1977

 

 

 This is a thunder box that everyone on a camp here has to have carter calls them outback dunnies the camp as they call them are 50mx50m and they then put ramshackle sheds on there camp and start mining they have no power water ect they run solar panels or generators put up water tanks and dig thunder boxs they are everywhere here the guy who works at the black hand was about 25 years old and last year found an opal worth 1.5million on his camp.

 

 

 

 These artersian spa baths are about 200m from the caravan park and we went there everynight for a swim they are about 38-45 degrees and are very relaxing tomorrow we head towards bourke then north towards quilpie and birdsville all in all we are enjoying ourselves alot we have had no issues and the kids have been really good ash is loving the new places i feel bad tying her up all the time though so i try and play with her as much as possible similiar theory with kristy :P

 

Life as a cotton farmer

While at Goondiwindi we took off for a drive around town and noticed bugger all to be honest tidy town but not much here at all we stayed a couple of days to get some of our affairs in order we went for a drive one day down to little town called bogabilla which was a waste of time on the way home i noticed a cattle sale on so we stopped in to have a look it had pretty much finished but we had a look at the weighing of the cattle which was pretty cool carter and i had a blast watching this.

After leaving goondiwindi we travelled west towards st george hoping to find work around that area as they were picking the cotton already on the way there i noticed a sign saying nindigully pub 10ks ahead i said to kristy that name sounds familiar so lets have a look so we dropped in there and found out i was right it is famous its not only qlds oldest pub at over 100 years old but it serves the famous roadtrain hamburger at a cost of $60 it feeds between 1-4 people and only weighs a mere 5.5kgs with a 1.5kgs beef pattie salad onion rings and a wait time off 1hr to cook. Someone order one while i was there but couldnt be bothered waiting for an hour to see it.

Well for the last 2-3 weeks i have been driving a tractor in the cotton fields around dirranbandi which is a small town near st george in western qld it was an experience that i wont forget for a while i worked for 12-15 hrs a day 7 days a week. I was mulching and root cuting the cotton plants after the cotton had been picked. 

See how dark it is at night trying to drive its very scary most days i would do a 12 hr shift and not see anyone besides the other driver when he came to do his 12hr shift after working at dirranbandi for a couple of weeks we had to move to a small town called toobeah it was very small literally 10 houses a pub which we camped behind and a kindy.

These cotton modules are worth about 15 thousand each and trust me there is a lot of them around i had to be very careful i didnt run into them when i turned around they were placed at each end where i turned around.

 

The boys visiting daddy on his tractor.

 

Some pics of downtown toobeah:

 

 



 

Finally Left

Well we have finally left the gold coast not after a few dramas but all sorted we spent a few days at nuerem creek with our great friends beau and willy and trent and michelle and really had a great time thanks so much we love you so much.  After leaving nuerem we had a quick stop at trents work to swap batterys and then went to a great little free camp near millmeran on the banks of a river we had a relaxing start to the morning and then left to head to goondiwindi and will stay here a few days to sort a few things out we miss our friends and family allready but are still excited about the future.