The Cormanus Chronicles: Remembering Jake and Elwood

[Cormanus]

Day 12 — Coonamble to Brisbane: Part 1
[url=https://postimages.org/]
[url=https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1TYCxvZiWMQORjl44JNaaO6Lz8Cf3hvo&ll=-31.23867797585635%2C149.97528875&z=6]Master Map #2

[url=https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/outback-nsw/lightning-ridge-area/lightning-ridge]Lightning Ridge is a remote opal mining town. It’s definitely in the Outback. The website says so even if pdedse’s map says it isn’t. I’ve always wanted to go there and it was pretty close to Coonamble and, at a pinch, on the way home. My wife encouraged me to take the opportunity.


That shadowy bastard’s back again!


Flat and straight. Big sky.


Welcome to Fairlands


Walgett water tower with a mural in honour of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Little]Jimmy Little, an Indigenous Australian musician.


What can you say?




Aside from having recently turned off the main road, I could tell I was approaching Lightning Ridge from the piles of mullock by the road.

By 09:45 I was in Lightning Ridge, had filled up with petrol and was enjoying a cup of coffee and something to eat. It’s an interesting place. Rusty cars, trucks and bits of machinery, piles of mullock and roadside signs offering to buy opals abound. There’s a hardscrabble feel to the place; houses are small and many need care. Covid and the current difficult economic circumstances may have hit it hard.



More metal art in Lightning Ridge.