After Coonabarabran we spent a night in Lightning Ridge - we had planned to spend two nights there because it's a bit out of the way but couldn't get any accommodation that wasn't a caravan park. In the end we had a very comfortable stay in an airbnb granny flat out the back of someone's house, and one night was absolutely the correct decision, because Lightning Ridge is very odd.
It's opal mining, which apparently attracts the crazies from around the country, and the tourists. So the town is kind of derelict and kind of touristy at the same time, and the countryside is just rocks and dirt. The official stats have the population at around 2,000 people but they reckon it's ten times that in reality. We weren't going to go underground to do any fossicking, so a brief visit was just fine. I did buy an opal pendant though - and wore it to work yesterday - very pretty. I also fixed my collar after I took this photo.
The drive there was very very very flat. And mostly very straight. We got snowed with bits of cotton from behind enormous cotton trucks, you can see it by the road in the photo. And we stopped for the cattle. I'm not sure if they were travelling stock or public grazing, but livestock have right of way, so we sat there for a while.
I love opals. My engagement ring has an opal in it. It's supposed to bad luck but we got engaged in 1972 and things seem to have been ok so far. Your photos of the countryside look very unScottish (probably because they are).
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