After negotiating the exit road, we headed north towards Lightning Ridge.
The weather outlook to the north was not good but we didn't have many options.
The wildlife out here is prolific. We have seen Cockatiels, Galahs, Red-rumped Parrots, Crows, Magpies, Magpie-larks, Emus, and a small mob of Grey Kangaroo.
I had to stop a couple of times to move dead kangaroos off the road.
We stopped at a rest area near the Lightning Ridge turn off for lunch and were joined by another motorhome we had first met at Mt Isa.
We went into town together and surveyed the various caravan parks, finally selecting one attached to a Hotel/Motel on the edge of town.
The weather was not inviting so we decided to veg out and wait until tomorrow to see the town.
We got up early and went to the Black Opal Mine where we saw a video about opal mining, went down into the mine, and watched a demonstration of opal cutting.
The opals are only found in clay layers under sandstone at about 150 m above sea level. The elevation of Lightning Ridge is about 160 m and the hill is about 180 m so the mines are from less than 10 m to 25 m deep. The miners bore down through the sandstone into the clay layer and then dig out the clay with electric picks, raise it to the surface using an electric hoist, truck it to a source of water, and wash it in converted cement mixers to remove all the clay leaving only "nobbies" (lumps of stone about 25-50 mm (1-2 inches) which are still mostly just stone. Very occasionally the nobbies contain opal and even more rarely the opal is big enough to be sold for gemstones.
The best opal can fetch $15,000 -20,000 per carat and the biggest opals may be many tens of carats so when they do strike it the return is phenomenal. Most miners don't find any opal at all. We talked to one ex-miner who spent six years digging tons of clay every day and never found any opal. He now makes a living buying opal and selling the jewelry his wife makes from them.
After lunch we went for a swim in the artesian bore baths. This is a swimming pool built by the Lightning Ridge Miners Association using water from an artesian bore which delivers water at 42°C (108°F). The baths are open 24 hrs a day and are free. I guess miners who spend their lives shifting very large amounts of dirt need to unwind their muscles and the baths are a good way of doing that. It certainly makes one want to come back.