March 23-25: Lightning Ridge, by Mick

Lightning ridge is a town in pretty much the middle of nowhere. It has gotten famous for the natural black opal deposits that occur in or near the town. Of course, loving rocks, I had to go there.

The stuff in italic is from my mom.

We spent one day (two nights) in this cool town, and this is what I learned. The first shaft was dug in 1902 by Charles Nettleton and he sold his first parcel of opal nobbies (natural lump-shaped opals only found in Lightning Ridge) in 1903. Opal was first found in lightning ridge in the 1880s but its value was not yet recognized.

The early mines were rectangular so that the miners could slide up and down with their backs and feet. In modern circular mineshafts they use steel ladders, or mechanical hoists that lower you down and bring you back up. After the first world war, the town was named Lightning Ridge.

It said that the name dates back to the 1870s when supposedly a farmer, his dog, and 600 sheep were all killed by lightning. This is probably a myth but it is still fun to imagine (or maybe not fun because I do NOT want to be struck by lightning).

Opal comes in three types: light opal (found in Coober Pedy, South Australia), boulder opal (found in Queensland), and lastly black or dark opal (found only in Lightning Ridge, NSW). The different types of opal also have different values, the most valuable being black opal and the least valuable being light opal.

Don’t get me wrong, ALL opal is beautiful, but I can understand why black opal is more valuable.

OPAL MUST KNOW TERMS & DEFINITIONS:

1. Natural Opal: Opal that has not been added to or changed in any way by humans with the exception of cutting and polishing.
2. Black/Dark Opal: Black Opal is the most valuable and most rare of Opals and is only found in and near Lightning Ridge. These Opals are easily identified by the dark layer of backing, making the colors show up better than light opal.
3. Light/White Opal: White Opal is opal that has a very light backing color making it appear lighter. The color actually appears “milky” with the light backing. This stone forms the biggest part of the opal family and is mostly mined in Coober Pedy, South Australia.
4. Boulder Opal: Boulder Opal is a variety of precious opal with the host stone (ironstone) incorporated as part of the gem. This type of opal is found in spots of Western Queensland. A type of Boulder Opal is also found in Andamooka, South Australia where the host rock is Quartzite instead of ironstone.
5. Potch: Opal that has no color or value. Potch usually has no value or color, so miners discard it assuming there is no color. Sometimes though, there is unknown color beneath the Potch.
6. Doublet Opal: A layer of natural opal glued to a black backing, simulating black opal. This type of opal is cheaper than solid opal.
7. Triplet Opal: Triplet opal is the cheapest type of opal gems because only a very small amount of Precious opal is used. In a triplet gem, there is a black backing layer glued to a small opal slice. Over the opal slice there is a transparent crystal dome, making the opal look larger.
8. Opalized Fossils: Most opal found in Australia occurred at the same time of the dinosaurs, so some opal can take the shape of a fossil.

A simple explanation of how opal is formed: “Opal is formed from a solution of silicon dioxide and water. As water runs down through the earth, it picks up silica from sandstone, and carries this silica-rich solution into cracks and voids, caused by natural faults or decomposing fossils. As the water evaporates, it leaves behind a silica deposit. This cycle repeats over very long periods of time, and eventually opal is formed.”– from; www.opalsdownunder.com.au.

There are more complicated explanations involving how the silica spheres bond together, and yada yada, but for the sake of my readers still wanting to read my blog, I took the shorter explanation. As we explored the town, we came across some interesting people such as the retired miner that runs The Big Opal, a former mine that you can go down into and explore. We did not go into the mine, but we did buy some opals from his little shop. As we were fossicking around in his little tray of opal dirt, he told us that the stuff we were looking at was the creme de le creme of the whole mining process. He told us that the dirt on the table was twenty thousand dollars’ worth of mining and searching for anything that could contain opal.

The below pictures should give you a feel for Lightning Ridge. It’s not for everyone, but if you like extreme heat, desolate landscape, kangaroos, buried treasure, and interesting characters, it could be for YOU!

There are several self-drive “car door” tours, which involve simply following the numbered car doors of your selected color. We did both the Red and Green Door tours, both dense with interesting historical and other (see #3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11) information.

Another retired miner that ran a funky little shop called the Bottle House told us that he mined 81 truck-loads of potential opal dirt, and he didn’t make a cent, but one of his friends went out to a former mine with just a pick to try his luck and found a 100+ carat-opal that was worth about 70 grand.

The Bottle House (unlike the Beer Can House) contains many interesting things, including, but not limited to: jewelry, paintings, souvenirs, empty bottles, rocks, crystals, minerals, myriad artifacts, specimens preserved in formaldehyde, antique mining equipment (you name it).

Before we went home at the tail end of the day, I went fossicking. Fossicking is basically just looking around in one of the dump piles that miners had already sorted  through but they may have missed something . I looked for an hour or two and found a couple nice pieces of opal. It is so exiting when you find a little bit of color beneath your fingertips.

After my fossicking adventure, we went home to our AirBNB; an old school house converted into a comfortable home. This may sound ridiculous but out of all of the places I have been this year, this is the one I most want to go back to.

The first school house in Lightning Ridge was built in 1907. As the town grew, a new schoolhouse was built. What would those schoolkids think if they knew someone would be sleeping in their classroom in 2018. 

Our host, Marianne, was born and raised in Lightning Ridge and she and her husband raised their children there as well. (FYI: Paul Hogan, Crocodile Dundee, was also born in Lightning Ridge!!) Marianne and her husband, a miner, purchased the schoolhouse in 1996 and moved it from its original location in town to their property on the Three Mile opal field to house her growing family.We felt very lucky to be her very first Airbnb guests. In a rough-around-the-edges town, the Old Schoolhouse was an oasis and we felt very pampered. 

Until next time, Mick