Day 5 / Wednesday (Bourke – Lightning Ridge, 309km, 192miles)

We decided to sleep in this morning, and it proved to be a good decision. Sunrise was a bit of a non-event (I sneaked a peak out the window around 7am).
We grabbed some breakky and hit the road early for the trip to Lightning Ridge, Australia’s opal capital.
We got into Lightning Ridge about lunch time and went straight to the tourist info centre. I figured after 5 days on the road, Max needed some play time.
We booked in for an underground tour for 3pm, but went for a self-guided tour around town by ourselves first.
I took Max up to the Artesian Baths to show him what they were all about, and confirm that we would indeed come up for a dip after dinner. For those who are not aware, the Great Artesian Basin is a huge body of fresh water which lies underneath 30 per cent of the Australian mainland. It holds an incomprehensible 8,700 million MEGAlitres of water! That’s 8.7 x one million x one million! That’s a helluva lot of water!
It’s very heavily laden with minerals, so you wouldn’t drink it, but it makes a great source of water for livestock and crops in the outback.
And it’s so hot when it comes up out of the ground, that they have to COOL IT DOWN for the baths! They keep it at a constant 40 degree Celsius year round.
Anyway, enough of the history lesson.
We did the underground tour and learned all about opal mining (and the fact that Australia produces 96% of the world’s opal!).
We had dinner, then went to the baths and spent about 90 minutes soaking in the warmth. It was absolutely gorgeous!

Take me to: <- Day 4 | Day 6 ->