LIGHTNING RIDGE

                                                     THE LONG “RIDE”

                                                     Night time Blues

There’s a pregnant crescent moon hovering over Balmain, its rays occasionally flecking the tops of ripples in Darling Harbour where a strange quiet has descended over the place usually awash with tourists.  The grim coloured lights of some of the buildings are dominant behind the fresh growth on the avenue of trees that line the shore, the unlit ferries are resting in their berths.  A cyclist rides past me while I’m stopped taking the inevitable picture or two.  How on earth I arrived here is a story in itself.

I’d tried to leave Lake Macquarie this morning but the battery was flat in the motorhome.  Thus I had to endure a one and three quarter hour wait before the NRMA finally arrived.  It was fortunate that my schedule didn’t demand an early exit.  In fact, I had all day, what could possibly go wrong once I was on the train?

I’d planned to drop in at Wangi Wangi en route and see a cycling friend named Ross and have a cuppa somewhere before I moved on to Morisset where I’d put the motorhome in storage and catch the train.  Think you’ve got problems?

Ross was immobile in bed after being out on a bike ride, coming down a hill and encountering a recently fallen branch.  Failing to negotiate it, his world suddenly went horribly wrong as he cascaded over the handlebars.  He has a crack in the C1 spine in his skull, 2 broken ribs, smashed scapula, punctures in his right lung and he’s in a neck brace.  “Comfort” is not a word he’s currently familiar with.  He declined my visit option.

Meanwhile, I managed to catch a train successfully, arriving on the platform one minute before its arrival.  Now things would go smoothly; surely.

I alighted at Central Station and, after I’d booked my luggage into storage and almost on the spur of the moment, decided to catch a train to Kiama, something I’d always wanted to do.  The fact that it’s over two hours away was not a deterrent, since I had all night to bust, having decided to wing it without unloading a few hundred dollars on nearby accommodation.

It was an express service and we only did half a dozen stops before leaving Sydney and plunging down to the coast north of Woollongong as the sun set behind.  Descending through the forest was a wonderful experience, littered with bush trails here and there where I fancied I might wander some time in the future before the Tasman Sea caught my eye.  The mesmerising ocean rose and fell in its rhythmic way, somehow ever tempting to the senses as glimpses flashed between urban foliage.

Night descended as the train rolled through the suburbs of Wollongong, depriving me of a vista over the ocean as we rumbled past Bombo Beach before finally arriving at Kiama.  My plan was to have dinner and return to Central which is sort of what happened only I missed my first return train opportunity after devouring a Domino’s pizza, my favourite garlic prawn, only to see the train heading out as I rode back to the station. 

Not to worry, time for a dessert and to discover something I’d been unable to unearth in previous visits - a quality restaurant, one with awards even!

Miss Arda is its name, and though it only ranks 20 of 85 on Trip Advisor (the main problem being service) the innovative menu is a highlight.  Middle Eastern food at its finest.  I opt for Pashmak, a luxurious selection of fairy floss flavours that may include decadent chocolate, floral orange blossom, earthy pistachio, delicate rose, complex saffron and sweet vanilla.  Mine has earthy pistachio and it’s set atop an orange cake.  Yum.

I make the next train with 15 minutes to spare and share the waiting room with a couple of middle aged males whose work obviously involves physical activity.  It’s a cool night but the one who’s mostly using expletive-deleteds and wearing shorts and singlet top obviously doesn’t seem to mind.  I ponder whether to leave the warmth of the waiting room but decide the chill air would be worse than his grating speech…only just.

Mercifully there’s plenty of room on the train to escape him and his companion and I settle in for the return journey and begin pondering just how the night will eventually pan out.

I opt for a walk when I reach Central, heading to the cavernous new section where untold hundreds of millions have been spent.  The arty halls will easily cater for the new station beneath that’s been constructed for the driverless trains that now rush beneath the city streets.  I decide to descend further into the bowels and realise one of the new trains is about to arrive so I board it.  It could be labelled the Asian Express, though whether the latter word refers to the pace of the train or the way the young folk move I haven’t decided.

There are 18 in my section and they’re all sitting looking at their phones, a modern phenomenon that has changed the way we communicate.  No more chatting to those sitting next to you!  I’m standing with my bike wondering what station I might alight at, planning to photograph subway architecture.  Barangaroo is my choice and it’s just as well I did, for, when I alight l start taking pictures of the sculptures but, I’m ushered off the platform because that was the last train or the day and they’re closing the station; which is how I found myself out in Darling Harbour, on a pushbike with no lights, taking photos of a near-deserted waterway in the middle of the night.

I ease my way around the foreshore, beneath the Harbour Bridge and back to Circular Quay station.  At least the trains run all night here, however spasmodic.

 I can say now with some authority, seven hours on Central Station on a cold night takes at least a couple of days…or so it seems.  At first I choose platform one, where a couple of derelicts and one other passenger have decided to tarry, but, in time, the cool winds coming in from outside become unbearable so I head into the bowels once more.  Here it’s five degrees warmer, sans wind, so I settle, or should I add “try to” before that, on the hard wooden benches provided.

I’m right beside the sayings of the newly inlaid floor:

 SIMPLY BREATHE NATURALLY

BE AWARE OF EACH MENTAL NOTE AS IT ARISES

SEE HOW THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS MOVE IN PARTICULAR WAYS

LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT YOURSELF THAT YOU MAY NOT HAVE KNOWN BEFORE

STAY FOCUSED WHEN EVERYTHING MOVES AROUND YOU

EXPAND THE CIRCLE OF COMPASSION OUTWARDS

BE CONFIDENT THAT AFTER SOME TIME YOU WILL NOTICE THE BENEFITS

WITH PRACTICE AN INNER BALANCE DEVELOPS TO A GREATER OR LESSER DEGREE

 

Somewhere around 2 a.m. I nod off for an hour, but when I wake, there’s still hours to go.  A toilet break is called for just to change the stupefying monotony, moving quickly to get my body warm.  There’s a train schedule nearby with a digital clock so I check that out every quarter of an hour or so.

Around 5 a.m. the station comes to life once more; people dashing off for early flights at Mascot seem predominant, the rattling wheels of their luggage echoing in the huge hallway.

Finally 6 a.m. rolls around; the pop up coffee place in the main concourse is doing a brisk business as I head off to book my bike in.  It all goes quite well; they even provide you with a spanner to take your pedals off; however, there’s a problem.  The man can’t find a record of my booking.  I tell him it’s on my phone but that has a flat battery!  Eventually, using old fashioned methods, he works out that I am booked in…..for tomorrow!

While I curse my stupidity he books me in for today and then dismantles the bike to fit into the cardboard package.  The pedal spanner is huge and I mention to him at one stage that one is a left hand thread as he gives it a forceful pressure.  That will come back to haunt me. 

It’s all good and I board the Country Link express, almost immediately falling asleep as we depart Central.  It’s when the train ascends the Blue Mountains that I wake up, just in time to enjoy the wonderful scenery I’m about to go through.  Rugged sandstone cliffs dance by the window before we move through the mountain suburbs and later descend towards Lithgow where some of the scenery around the Zig-Zag Railway is eye-popping.

The Central West Slopes and Plains roll out and the winter rains have done their job, it’s downright verdant out there.  Lush green set before an azure blue sky flecked with white fairy floss makes viewing a delight.  Then throw in a dose of canola gold sprayed across the foreground; magic.

At Dubbo it’s time to change to a bus and partake of some very ordinary crumbed chicken and chips from the station takeaway while I wait for the bus.

All the trip I’ve been trying to arrange accommodation for the extra night, but it’s no go in opal land so, when we roll into Coonamble, a couple of hours short of my target, I note motels with few cars and decide to bail out, rather than risk the Ridge.

The bus stop is but 50 metres to a motel but I’ve got one heavy backpack, one suitcase and a packaged up bike listed as 20 kilos.  From out of nowhere a kindly man, seemingly of middle-eastern origin, rushes from across the road to help me.  I’m ever so thankful but, as we arrive at the motel, other problems emerge.

A guest arrives at the desk just before me, thrusts his key on the bench and says he won’t sleep in the room because it (a) hasn’t been cleaned, (b) reeks of fresh paint (c) the bed hasn’t been made and says he’s heading off to Gilgandra instead.

When it’s my turn I quickly learn it’s the only room left.  In desperation I suggest they give me some cleaner and I’ll tidy it up, make the bed and that will do me for one night.  The new managing family are taken aback while cursing the absentee Indian owner for the stuff up but, after I speak the owner via the phone, I’m offered the room at half price and gladly head to somewhere I can sit on a comfy bed.

Turns out it had two beds, one unused, and there was barely a sign someone else had been there other than the other bed.  It did, however, reek of fresh paint so the window was immediately opened.  Sometime later the lady next door stepped out and started smoking, whose odour also drifted in to add to the paint aroma.

I was so tired I crashed soon after, ever grateful to put my head on a pillow after the previous night.

Next morning the odour had lessened and I went over to hand in my keys, only to find out that the manager had been sacked after I’d been booked in and his daughter, who ran the front counter, had handed the owner 2 weeks’ notice!

I left my luggage in the courtyard and headed off to explore Coonamble, a town I’d never seen before.  It appears to be suffering a fate similar to others; hanging on despite declining industry and fuelled by the rural sector, though parts seemed quite well looked after.

At the Tourist Information Centre there’s a truly exceptional work of art, entitled “The School Bus” by local Brian Campbell.  It’s a horse with three people on it done with wire, eventually acquired by the local council utilizing State Government funding.  It’s just across the road from some silo art, a modern phenomenon of local areas, this time featuring galahs.

Dropping into a local café, which had a prosperous look about it, I ordered a milkshake and sat down.  At the table beside me a gent struck up a conversation because I’d picked up a book on Egypt, one of a few books scattered around for the benefit of patrons.  He liked this particular volume because it delved into ancient Egyptian architecture but his chat quickly diverted into his business, making kitchen furniture.  Turns out he employs 42 people in Dubbo and used to have a factory in China but canned it because quality control is an ongoing issue apparently.

However, he’d made many trips to China and related how he’d stood on the tallest building in Shanghai, looking way down to a new construction.  When he returned a couple of years later he stayed in the same building but, it was now the second tallest, the one beside it having usurped its title.

He also owned a mining lease at Lightning Ridge but, because of the shower of rain overnight, it had become inaccessible because it’s in an area of black soil which is not stable when it’s wet. 

I bade him adieu and wandered off to shoot some birds, noting that sparrows, pigeons and starlings were in the ascendancy, creatures of no interest to me until I glanced up and saw a pair of mating sparrows and grabbed a shot, or so I thought.  It’s only the third time I’ve ever seen birds “in the act” and so I was bitterly disappointed when the shot failed to materialize when I later checked.

Still, I managed two birds I’d never seen before, an Australian reed warbler and a white-browed wood swallow.  The former came about when a couple of locals beckoned me from the other side of the main bridge to photograph some carp, that much despised species that we’re stuck with.

En route back I pass by the now-defunct Commercial Hotel.  Its walls carry part of a series of billboards called the Nickname Hall of Fame.  If you think life is tough, try “Monkey” a.k.a. Colin Head.

At the family’s sawmill, aged two, Colin was allegedly pushed into a heap of hot ashes by one of his five brothers.  He spent years in hospital with badly burnt hands.  When he was 8 and building a tree house for his sister he fell 10 metres and became Monkey.  He broke two arms one leg and his nose.  He was sent to school in Baradine but still managed to break his arm playing football.

Despite crimped hands and some permanently straight fingers, Monkey worked in timber mills for years. It has been said that the Simpson Desert was once the Simpson Forest – until Monkey clear-felled all the trees.  The Head Family donated all the timber to build the Coonamble Scout and Guide Halls.

While at the Ceelnoy Mill in the Pilliga, he was pounded into the ground by a large branch, leaving a remarkably clear print of his backside and breaking his shoulder.  With his brother Mickey, he set up the Gillgooma Sawmill next to the churchyard, but that was no protection.  A saw-feeding machine caught his clothes and, while Monkey grabbed a headboard and hung on, the machine ripped off his shorts, leaving only waistband and zip.  Wearing just a towel, Mickey drove himself to the hospital where X-rays revealed a new fracture in his vertebrae and a few older breaks that had never been treated.

Monkey was a dedicated footballer and cricketer.  One winter, he planed the top off his only working finger yet still won the batting average in the district cricket that summer.

Monkey accumulated more than one man’s share of misadventures and was an accomplished story-teller.  Who could doubt him when he had the scars to prove it!  His uncle and aunt owned the Commercial Hotel from 1951-1964.

I went back to grab my luggage and started struggling down the street with my bike pack when middle eastern man again rushed over from a voting kiosk to help me.  I hope he got elected.

A few hours later and I’m settled in at my Lightning Ridge motel, zapped out from lack of sleep and a day of travel. 

                                                            OUT AND ABOUT

Next morning the bike finally emerges and I’m on my way, first stop Tourist Information Centre where a cheery lady, also from Newcastle, gives me maps and other paraphernalia that they normally charge for, gratis.

I’m off down the road, see a turnoff that looks promising and immediately get attacked by a magpie, my 6^th this season.  I later learn I turned up a private access road where there’s no man made attractions but have a wonderful time wallowing in nature.  Wildlife is plentiful; insects, lizards and birds abound but there’s no emus or roos that everyone else has seen and I won’t for my whole time here.

Rolling further back on the main road I turn left this time, onto Mr. Smiley Face Road, unbeknownst to me another private thoroughfare.  Here, the quirkiness of the Ridge is more apparent.  Rustic signs, abandoned trucks and equipment, flattened lizards, all leading to the Yellow Door Explorer Tour and Lunatic Hill.  I should explain here that there are four tours for tourists in Lightning Ridge, all designated by coloured car doors.

Lunatic Hill has significant history.  A man known colloquially as “Dad” was working it, without success, but always believing there was opal there.  A couple of diggers tried to dissuade him but helped him go deeper anyway.  The hill was 25 metres above the surrounds of Three Mile Road where most others were digging.  Famous author Ion Idriess worked a claim here in 1909-1910 but, it wasn’t until 1986 when the largest black opal nobby was unearthed here. Now there’s a huge hole, fenced off to protect the public from themselves, and it’s only occasionally worked.

It weighs 1982.5 carats and measures 100 x 66 x 63 mm, or 4 x 2-5/8 x 2-1/2 in. Halley’s Comet was for sale in 2006 for AUD $1.2 million. The gem has a thick gem quality green and green/orange colour bar and is the largest gem nobby to be found at Lightning Ridge to date.

I return to the Ridge via Three Mile Road and pass a gallery back in town.  It’s John Murray’s and it’s a stunner.  Some people have talent and John is numbered among them.  His works, at times quirky, capture the feel and essence of the outback and he’s got one new fan.  Photography inside is banned but there’s enough works outside to satisfy my trigger finger and he has other outstanding street art examples elsewhere in the town.

After a compulsory nap I’m headed to the Blue Car Door Tour.  There’s a famous walk in mine but I opt instead for the slightly-less-famous cactus garden.  A man called Bevan came here from Wyong in 1966 and brought 40 cacti with him.  Bevan’s now host one of the largest cactus nurseries in the southern hemisphere with approximately 2,500 young and aged varieties. Grown from seeds collected from around the world, many plants are now well over 100 years old, with the oldest being nearly 150.  Though the father is now deceased (his ashes interred in the garden), his son, John carries on the tradition.  It’s definitely worth a look.

Nearby there’s a stained glass centre.  The artistic wife is the maker but she’s in absentia so I chat with the husband, who’s of Germanic origin.  Turns out he’s fanatical about honey.  Once had a thriving community of bees but they were wiped out in the 10 year drought.  He proclaims that rubbing honey on a wound twice a day will clean it up better than any ordinary medication and believes many troops in war situations would be better off using it for their injuries.  Turns out he’s bang on the money but do a little research first before you go down that path.

Prawn linguine (yum) follows at the Bowlo, the club that owns the motel I’m staying in and, if you join, for the princely sum of five dollars, you get a three dollars voucher, ten percent off any purchase in the club and, big plus, ten percent off my accommodation.

                                                              Spreading Wings

Trouble sleeping means I’m not really focused next morning but struggle out of the room and find my way over the road to a local gallery that has an excellent representation of aboriginal art and lots of other oddities such as you tend to find in charity stores, like lemon butter, a bottle of which finds its way into my pocket.

Pushing out I head to Blue Car Door Tour and go past the racecourse and cemetery, stopping from time to time to photograph nature, mainly birds. 

There’s plenty of other stuff and I’ve managed to spot another two feathered friends I’ve never seen before but I’m taken by an apostle bird group fussing over their mud based nest.  Their social structure means they all (between 6 and 20) contribute to raising the young of just one pair.  However, if things aren’t going well and their dominant male dies, they may well raid the nest of another group and kidnap the young.  Today they’re fully into nest building.

A mating couple of blue tongue skinks is on the side of the road but, by the time the camera is ready, they’ve retreated into the roadside grasses, obviously shy of the erotic display they’re putting on, so I capture a lone male further along, warming up under the sun in the middle of the road.

The entire goal for the afternoon is to shoot the sunset.  There’s a lookout at the end of the green car door tour on some higher ground than the surrounds where rock circles in the shape of a labyrinth were placed by 4 people in just 6 hours.  These days you’re encouraged to maintain it, should an errant boulder have been dislodged.

Nearby there’s a beer can house that I decide not to visit, instead opting to sit a while and wait for the sunset.  My friend John has told me to wait until all the people have gone because that’s when it actually happens. 

After blazing away for 15 minutes, all other thoughts are banished from my mind when someone taps me on the shoulder and offers me and my bike a lift back to town.  Halfway back my memory kicks in and, when we arrive back in town, I look back over my shoulder and see the deep orange hue on the horizon that I should have waited for.  Bugger.

                                                                SOMETHING SPECIAL

My bike is slowly heading towards being unserviceable.  The spanner that the railwayman used on it 4 days ago stripped the thread on one of the pedals so it’s almost unusable.

My single main goal today is the Chambers of the Black Hand.  It’s a truly remarkable story of how this particular miner would carve the walls with a butter knife while eating his lunch or such.  For twenty two years Ron Canlin, unschooled in art, scraped and cut this truly extraordinary legacy.  Which is just as well because it costs $48 to enter.

There are Buddhas, African wildlife, Egyptian reliefs, Australiana, Michelangelo replicas, famous singers and personalities; the list is truly endless. The Buddha statues have even been blessed, by none other than the Dalai Lama himself!

He was never going to allow the public in but someone more enterprising advised otherwise and, these days, Ron happily plays golf at Batlow while his works draw tourists aplenty.

It took me about an hour before I climbed out, completely gobsmacked.  His array of work is beyond your imagination.

With little time now left, I struggle slowly to the Red Car Door Tour.  I’m fortunate that it’s the closest one to me and it’s relatively short.

In the rarefied air of Sim’s Hill, the highest point around these parts, I ponder whether I should have brought some oxygen with me.  After all, it’s 170 metres above sea level! 

One of the original diggings, back in 1905, it has some oddities these days, like the home built from stone and bottles that precedes Amigo’s Castle (circa 1981), a private home single-handedly built of ironstone.  It’s an interesting end to a place where “quirky” is the norm.

With the bike pedal disintegrating beneath me I head back, pack up and wait the bus tomorrow morning.

                                                                ….AND THEN IT GOT WORSE…

Everything goes smoothly, bike packed, bus pick-up goes smoothly, stop at Coonamble and grab some street art shots, the road trip to Dubbo; stopping to change to train and then watch the world go by as the rolling central western slopes and plains pass the window.

Though I’d hoped to view the Blue Mountains and its dramatic cliffs once more, the night had closed in as people scurried away from Lithgow station and last-chance meals were called for over the mike.

The massive diesel throbbed its way upwards then down to the flashing-by lights of Sydney suburbs, while we’re kept awake by the calls over the loudspeakers denoting the next stop.

At last I’m at Central, my packed-up bike awaiting me near the exit.  Ripping the box open it’s quickly re-assembled except for the errant pedal and a Newcastle train leaves in 14 minutes.  It’s all going swimmingly and the one I catch only has half a dozen stops before Morisset and hardly any passengers.

Alighting onto the platform, bit by bit my luggage cascades out and I’m ready to ride to my storage facility, even if the bike is less so inclined.  Pushing almost exclusively with the right leg I manage to ride my way through the gloom, visions of a comfortable night in the motorhome constantly playing through my mind.  It will be such a blessed relief.

I press the code in to enter the facility.  Wrong numbers.  I press again, taking extra care.  Fail.  A quick glance sideways and my comfy night dreams are shattered.

The storage has gone from a 24 hour facility to “Open: 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.”.  It’s half past ten and it’s cold.  By the time I stumble, fumble my way back to the station through the dark streets on the now “one-pedal” bike, it’s colder.  A soft Antarctic chill pervades the platform.

I now have three long sleeved shirts on and it’s still cold but getting worse.  I move to the far side into the waiting room there but it’s to no avail.  There are no toilets available during the night so I have to scamper out beyond the carpark to locate suitable trees.

Next, I note there’s a train due in about half an hour.  I’m becoming hypothermic.  It’s not good.

I jump on the Sydney train, leaving my locked-up bike behind.  In time, I count 13 people in my carriage, 12 of whom are rugged up in parkas and wearing beanies.  Though I can’t actually see him, due to a lack of mirrors, one isn’t.  At least it’s slightly less cold than out on the platform but I yearn for the soft and comfy motorhome sleep I’ll never have.

I change at Strathfield for the return journey.  Unsurprisingly, it’s freezing on the platform so I try and spend a minute or two in the blessed wind relief of the lift.  Lack of sleep and the cold is driving my immune system southwards and I’m grateful when the Newcastle train arrives.

The comings and goings of early morning commuters provides brief interludes for my brain but, on a journey where I ritually fall asleep every time around the Central Coast area, on this occasion it doesn’t happen.

By the time I alight, yet again at Morisset, commuters are showing their faces but my faint and forlorn hope of a taxi actually materializes.  I’ve turned the corner.  So I thought, silly boy.

I’d been having suspicious and worrying occasions of low battery charge.  There’s none at all today but, luckily, thinking ahead, I’d parked on a decided down-slope and it clutch started immediately.  My next stop was Battery World.  Then, and only then, could I sleep when I made it home.