We headed off towards Wilcannia this morning, after chatting with Pete and Jeanie, a couple we met at the roadside stop. Not much in Wilcannia, but a few nice old buildings. These towns were once thriving and growing, and now they are empty.
We turned north towards White Cliffs, where they mine for opals, a hundred km drive through scrub, grass and red dirt. We arrived in the middle of a stinking hot day, amongst a motley collection of tin sheds, an expensive national parks information centre (closed), old deserted pub covered in Castlemaine signs, and hills of rubble. Very few trees. The kids all thought it was a bit dry and dusty. I think everyone was staying inside out of the heat. Summer is not their peak tourist season. 
Up a hill we visited Jock. He lives in a dugout, as do many of the people in White Cliffs, with rooms dug into the side of the hill. The exposed rock inside is whitewashed, linoleum laid on the floor, water piped in the walls, and voila, a house that is several degrees cooler than the temperature outside. Jock spoke very loudly, and had a bit of a tale of woe, but we enjoyed wandering through the tunnels of his cave home. He had old things piled everywhere. I saw old cooking pots, a silver tray, a huge set of bellows, wicker baby prams, a grind stone, old typewriter, taxi meter....
We drove around between the opal mines searching for opals in the piles of rubble. There were mine shafts everywhere. Try doing a google search on White Cliffs and see what it looks like from the air.
It was hot.
We decided to visit an opal shop so we could actually show the children some opals, and the people there were very nice, salting the ground outside their dugout with potch (rock) that had some colour and letting everyone hunt for it to get the idea. They were much more cheerful than Jock. We decided to have another hunt between the mine shafts. This time we found some little bits and pieces. It was very hot.
We drove back into Wilcannia and stopped for fuel at a temperamental fuel bowser. Every $30 of fuel it would reset and you had to hang it up and start again. There were some little puppy dogs crowding behind a fence. Black cattle dogs. this must have raised a bit of a discussion amongst the children, because Nadine asked me later, "why did we have to have Neo dissected?". (Neo is our dog)
We photographed one of the beautiful old buildings beside the big lake in this small town, and kept driving.
It is really hot. (did I mention that already?) It is so hot I don’t even have to boil water to get it warm for washing up. It comes out of our tap hot!
Tonight we are camped 55km out of Wilcannia on the way to Cobar. There were emus, foxes, kangaroos and goats across the road as we drove this evening. It is a truck stop, and trucks keep stopping, funny that, to take their 15 minute break every two hours or whatever it is. They pull in, their brakes hiss and sigh, they run their engine for ten minutes or so, then they rev it up and slowly move off again. Right near our van. Not sure how the sleeping is going to go tonight.
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Vicki
What an experience.
ReplyDeleteAnd you met a cave man. I believe in cave men—they are simply men who live in caves.
Opal town White Cliffs is on the Cretaceous Rolling Downs Group which was one of the last deposits as the waters of Noah's Flood were rising. Other opal towns like Lightening Ridge and Coober Pedy are also on the sediments of this huge deposit. The Sediments Comprising the Great Artesian Basin are shown on a figure in this article.
By the way, it is now recognized that opals form in weeks and months.