Our Sunday started probably much the same way that yours did.
A bit of a sleep in until one of us needed to get up to go to the bathroom. That disturbed The Captain (hard not to when he is snoozing on the end of the bed) and then he demanded to be taken out to his bathroom too.
Ray did this so I lay in bed wishing that he had closed the door between the kitchen and bedroom so that when they came back, I’d still be able to snooze a while. Unfortunately, I knew Henry would be right back so I got up, popped the kettle on and started to squeeze lemons for my lemon water.
The morning went slowly. We weren’t in any rush to go anywhere. I hooked up Ray on the iPad so he could read the Herald Sun (he much prefers the paper edition but he has no chance of getting it here), we did some more washing and hung it out, Henry had another turn at the off lead area and I swept out the caravan and tidied up. I wrote a shopping list because we needed to replenish the fridge.
We had lunch and then left for a look around. We knew town would be pretty quiet being a Sunday so we thought a visit to a tourist attraction was in order.
The reception at the caravan park had given us a sheet with some tourist attractions on it. All we had to do was follow the coloured car doors. Hmmm…that sounded interesting. We started with the red car doors. They were literally painted car doors.
We went driving through what was a neighborhood of small mine claims. The claims were mostly fenced off with all manner of bits of wire, metal and wood and the houses that the miners were living in ranged from old rusting caravans to corrugated lean-tos. Near each dwelling was a pile of rubble. Some big some small, and a hole in the ground, some covered, many uncovered and plenty with a triangle shaped contraption over the hole that is used for hauling up rubble from the depths of the hole.
These holes in the ground were actually working Opal mines. Further on there were no fences just large holes and piles of rubble beside the road. I was glad to be driving because there was a real fear of disappearing down one of those mine holes as you walked along. I pictured Henry walking along and then…gone.
We rounded the corner and came to Amigo’s Castle. This castle was built by hand by Amigo who arrived here from Italy in 1970. He finished it in 1983. Rumour has it that Amigo has found Opal underneath the castle but he’s not telling if he has. We wouldn’t be surprised because Lightning Ridge has the largest known deposits of black opals in the world.
It had a huge closed sign on the gate, we didn’t know if it was because it is Sunday or if it was because Amigo is in jail.
This morning in an endeavor to find out if the castle was pet friendly (it is), I Googled it. The very first article that came up (even before the website) was an article about a local Lightning Ridge man who had finally been found as the murderer of a local woman in 2020. Yes! Amigo. The article went into detail about what he did and so now we will have to go back and see if it’s closed due to it being Sunday or murder. Ray took some photos through the hole in the fence anyway.
We thought we could ask at the Visitor Information Center but it was also closed today. It did have one of those painted boards that you put your head through. Loads of fun with the phone timer.
We drove around town, got some fuel (the murals are painted by a local artist, John Murray ,who has a gallery here) and went 10 kilometers back out of town where Stanley the emu stood welcoming visitors. We saw him yesterday but drove too fast past him to get a proper photo so going back today was on the agenda.
Stanley is 18 meters high and is made from scrap metal, most notably VW Beetle bonnets. He was supposed to be on the Birdsville Track as intended by the artist, but the cost of getting him there was too much. A bit of bureaucracy also came into play. The people of Lightning Ridge came to the rescue and gave Stanley a home standing on the ridge for which the area is named. He houses a time capsule in his belly to be opened in 2063.
He faces the direction of his spiritual home- The Birdsville Track and represents what it is too hard for others to achieve, the people of Lightning Ridge can!
The supermarket beckoned so Ray and Henry went for a walk while I braved the Super IGA. Predictably, I got a trolley with a wonky wheel (hate that fight) but pleasantly, I was able to find everything we needed. Prices were a dollar or two more expensive on some things and fewer specials to be seen, but for a mining town of this size we were doing ok.
We are ever conscious of how Henry is coping in the heat and decided he should return to the van and the shade, possibly (most definitely) the air conditioning kin the van and some clean fresh water.
Ray’s back has been giving him a bit of trouble. He has a broken vertebrae that hasn’t healed for 8 years. He aggravated it having golf lessons and it is inflamed. Long days in the car haven’t helped so to discover that there is an artesian bore 200 meters up the road was pretty exciting. Ray was pretty keen to get there when he heard about the healing properties of sitting in artesian waters. The only problem is, the water is at 41.5° temperature. You can only sit in the water for a few minutes, then you have to get out and shower under cold water before getting back in and having another go in the hot water. Even with the 35° outside temperature that we have here in Lightning Ridge it sounds like bliss to me. I’m perpetually cold. Not so much to Ray, but he was really keen to give it a go and use it as much as possible before we move on.
I decided that he should go and I would stay at the caravan with Henry inside in the air-conditioning because Henry was asleep. So, off he went and came back 45minutes later very red-faced but feeling very relaxed. He thinks it’s going to help his back so he will use it as much as possible while we’re here.
It’s actually provided free of charge by the council and it’s open 24/7. As you can imagine, it’s full of people of a certain age trying to heal all their ailments.
Ray cooked some lamb cutlets on the Ziggy BBQ that I got from the supermarket and he said They were so good that he would have chosen them himself. They were cut exactly how he would’ve cut and boned them when he was a butcher. I was so proud of my efforts. All that training from him as an ex-butcher, in choosing meat cuts, had certainly paid off over the years.
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