Lightning Ridge is a town in north-western New South Wales near the southern border of Queensland. The Lightning Ridge area is the world-renowned centre of the mining of black opals, found nowhere else in the world. The name Lightning Ridge is said to have originated when in the 1870’s some passers by found the bodies of a farmer, his dog and 200 sheep which had been struck by lightning.
They have an interesting way of showing visitors around the place – the car door tours. Basically, you look for a coloured car door and then follow the numbers for that colour. So the red car door tour will have red car doors numbered 1 to 9 and each car door is next to an item of interest. Same for the green, blue and yellow car door tours.
It is a crazy place with things like ‘Lunatic Ridge’, where only the crazy miners mined because it was so deep to get to the opals, houses made of beer cans and bottles, 50 metre high metal emus … and much more.
BOB AND SIOBHÁN'S CARAVAN ADVENTURES 