Saturday 24 August 2019 - Lightning Ridge

Set off this morning to the Chambers of the Black Hand.  This attraction has been voted 2nd most unmissable attraction in outback Australia and Winner of the NSW Hidden Jewel Award 2008.  This was an opal mine that was unproductive with gems so the owner started doing mine tours for tourists to try and make some money to live on.  While waiting for tourist, and to have a break from mining, to fill in his time he started doing carvings in the sandstone.  He has spent 20 years producing the 800 or so carvings which include a 10ft Buddha, Angels, Jungel Cats, Politicians and an Eyptian Chamber.  He has also drawn "where's Wally" throughout the tunnels for the kids to find.

Upon arrival you go 12m underground and then can wander freely through the tunnels spending as much time as you like looking at the carvings.  The artist is now retired, being around 80 but still returns every couple of months to do repairs.  They also have a theatre with a DVD running on opal mining.  As an extra you can do a tour in the actual mine which is on a lower level to the carvings.  We elected not to do that as I was ready to return to the surface and fresh air.  We spent about 2 hours there.

We drove back to town and walked the main street.  Apart from opal shops and coffee shops not much there.

Next stop was the Art and Craft Shop.  This is run by local artists of the area who sell their work and also run work shops.  When we visited the locals were Wally & Kevin.  Wally did sketches and paintings.  Not sure what Kevin did.  There was an array of different craft but the highlight (for me) were the 7 weaving displays.  They were produced by a local woman working with the 2 local elders of the area.  They represented different aboriginal stories and the workmanship on them was incredible.  They have been displayed around Australia.  Much to my surprise we spent 1 hour there.  When we first walked in I thought we would be out in 10 minutes but the locals were very friendly and the work deserved a second look.

Spent the rest of the day getting the washing up todate and doing the blog.  We are going to do the final car door tour ending with a sunset viewing this evening but will do a separate post for that so I can publish this now leaving you with some more carvings.