Lightning Ridge

We have visited Lightning Ridge a few years back and at that time took the town bus tour and had a good explore around Grawin and Sheepyards, as well as having a scratch around to try and find some opal.  Therefore, we only gave ourselves one full day in the town before continuing on our way.

Lightning Ridge seems to be the destination of choice for Bloggers/Zoomers/Scrub Stitchers, with me being the sixth to visit the town in the last month.

We had two places we particularly wanted to visit this time.  The first was the Chambers of the Black Hand.  We had heard nothing but rave reviews about it. The name had me intrigued.  Apparently, an Englishman by the name of Ron Canlin, with a background in the Naval Special Forces, ended up at Lightning Ridge, just for a short time, and ended up buying the Black Hands Mine in 1982.  

The mine was a dud, so he decided to open it to the public.  He hand dug a set of stairs down into the mine.  It is a very long set of stairs and you end up 18 metres below the surface.  There are still mine tours, but we weren’t interested in that.

He signed off on the date he completed the stairs and small gallery at their base.

He created a room at the bottom of the stairs and discovered that the sandstone walls were soft enough to carve.  He had done some whittling of wood previously, but has not formal art training.  First he created a Welcome banner, then he carved his Navy regimental insignia.  He used the bread and butter knife out of his lunch box.  All the carvings are done with that one knife and some forks.  He went through quite a few forks, creating textured backgrounds.

The original knife, with the opals attached to the handle, is held in the gift shop.  It is surprising how much of the blade is still intact.

He continued to add to the carvings, improving his skills as he went along.  There are now many different chambers featuring all sorts of things.  Some are just the natural stone, while others are painted.  Come along for an explore.

There are several Buddha in one chamber and they have been blessed by a representative of the Dalai Lama. 

The collection of Prime Ministers is surprisingly up to date.  Apparently, the most recent carving in the Chambers was done in 2022.

The miner represents Ron, while Herman was the fellow that started and ran The Opal Cave, where they sell opals, funnily enough.

To amuse the kids, there are several “Where’s Wally” pictures dotted around the chambers.  We found a few, but I’m guessing we missed many more.  They were in rather hidden little spots.

Ron is now in his 80s and lives down the south coast.  Apparently, he still visits Lightning Ridge, but is not doing any more carvings.

We were not disappointed and the Chambers lived up to their reviews.  We are so very glad that we visited.

Our next port of call was the Cactus Garden.  This was created in the 1980s, with some of the plants being up to 60 years old.

This one is a Saguaro, which is the Arizona State Flower.  This specimen is over 100 years old.  Most of the cactus were from the Americas.

And that concluded our pre planned touristy bits.

Having read the information brochure on the area and checking out the website, it appeared that there was Social Bowls at the Bowling Club on Sunday afternoons, and it was Sunday.  However, when Mick phoned, it turned out that they had played in the morning instead, as it was Mother’s Day.  They said he could still go down for a roll up in the afternoon and a few others would probably turn up.  I went along to keep him company and do some crochet.

The Bowling Club is rather fancy for the area and is currently undergoing even further improvements.  They have one grass green and a very flash artificial surface green under cover with fans and misters.  The fans and misters weren’t on, but we appreciated the shade.  It was a pleasant temperature, but would have been a bit warm otherwise.

There were even a couple of John Murray murals.

No one else turned up, so I had a roll up with him.  No crochet was done. We had a lovely afternoon rolling back and forwards and I am delighted that I actually beat him on a couple of ends.  It was a really pleasant way to spend some time without being touristy.  Afterwards we had a nice yarn with a couple of local bowlers and learnt that they have a very rich bowls tournament, The Black Opal Classic, which was depicted in one of the murals.

Our final destination for the day was to soak away the aches and pains in the bore baths, on dusk.

All I can say is that they are HOT!!! 

There is the large pool, pictured here and a smaller, cooler one.  I could only manage to dangle my feet in the cooler one… not even get in.  Mick, on the other hand hopped in the big pool.  Even the locals were saying it was very hot on the day.  Oh well, it was still a nice place to sit and we had a nice chat with others that were there.

And so ended our time in Lightning Ridge.  We would be back on the road the next day.

Scrub Stitchin’ - Part 1

Most of us arrived at Scrub Stitchin’ on the Wednesday and when entering the room it was the neatest and quietest that it ever was for the next few days.  The fresh flowers on the table looked lovely and the goody bags this year were so pretty. 

There were some lovely quilts hanging on the walls.

Chooky,

Brenda.  The petals are 3D on this one.

Betty and Stephanie.  This quilt was made from scraps collected at last year’s Scrub Stitchin’.  As there weren’t enough low volume scraps, some of the brighter fabrics were turned over so that the reverse side acted as low volume.  The design is so effective.

By the way, we could get out our mug etc from the bag, but there was another bag inside which were instructed, on pain of death, not to open.  OK, not quite on pain of death, but I still wouldn’t have liked to have tested Chooky on this one.  LOL

Once I found my spot, it was time to set up ready to get sewing, once all the greetings had taken place, which took the best part of the day.  This area never looked so neat for the rest of the event either.

Meanwhile, Mick had set up camp on Monday, done some odd jobs for Chooky’s Mum and been to the Bowling Club on Tuesday night to play bingo and have dinner with the ladies.  He had a great time.

Back to us.

I did get some stitching done on Wednesday, but I will share that in a separate post.  Our stitching did get somewhat curtailed, as there was a power outage mid afternoon, which lasted until about 7pm.  

Anyway, Wednesday night is always one where we go out to dinner in town and the boys are allowed to tag along. This meant Mick and Tony (from NZ), as well as Mr Chooky and Mr Jules.  This year the venue was the Bowling Club.  It was rather busy down there, as they have a generator and many locals decided that the Bowlo was a good place for tea.  Add to that, they were having a social bowls night.  Mick took his and his mum’s bowls away with us, so he and Tony were able to join in.    They did have a fun night.  As there were going to be so many visitors (us Scrubbers), the Bowling Club decided to put on some meat raffles.  We all bought tickets, and Annette won two.  Well done.  Of course, I bought the ticket directly after her, and just missed out.  Oh well.  Apparently the club cooked 106 meals that night.  Wow!

On Thursday Chooky’s Mum provided nice fresh scones.  Always a highlight.  There were also some other lovely slices.  Do you like my pretty bilby mug?  I do, and it just happens to coordinate with a couple of others of this series we have at home. 

Then……..there was one big surprise on Thursday afternoon.  Sneaky Jo, who had said she couldn’t come due to Tony’s health, popped her head in the door.  What!  They had made the trip.  How good was that.   

Jo got to spend time with us and Tony got to hang out with Mick and Tony.

Once the last couple of girls arrived, we were instructed to open our brown paper bag, in which there was a fat quarter, a charm pack, a reel of Sashiko thread and a couple of Sashiko needles.  

Then Jo put on her tutor’s hat and taught us how to do Kawandi stitching.  It is a technique that comes from India.

Here are a few examples Jo had prepared before.

In my usual style, I didn’t start on the project while there, but am looking forward to trying the technique and hopefully having a completed project to take along next year.

Kate, in her usual style, chatted, carried on like a clown and had her version finished before she went home.  How she achieves so much amazes me.  She is one heck of a multi tasker.

Friday was a day of generally, stitching, chatting, eating.

And impromptu show and tell, as projects were completed, or progressed as far as they could at the time.

There was, however, one fun little activity.  Lou suggested we should all take along a  photo of us as a toddler and then we could all guess who was who.  Well, that was hard. Twenty nine of us took along a photo and in the end Di and I were equal winners and we were only able to work out ten.

This was my contribution, with my special Golly.

The weather was glorious for the entire time, other than one short sharp storm.  We were treated to some beautiful sunsets and the moon was nearly full.  I just had to take some photos.

More soon.