Dubbo to Collarenebri and Lightning Ridge (Day 008 to 009)

Day 8—Tuesday, 2nd July

After leaving the Caravan Park at 9.30am, we made a short trip to the Information Centre (plenty of van parking), for a closer look at the old rail bridge which carries the line over the river into Dubbo station. 

The Dubbo rail bridge over Macquarie River is a heritage-listed bridge on the Main Western line, located west of the Dubbo central business district.

It was designed by John Whitton, at the time, the Engineer-in-Chief for the New South Wales Government Railways.

The bridge was built during 1884 by Benjamin Barnes, with ironwork by Cochrane & Co, Middlesborough, England. The railway bridge is also known as the Dubbo Lattice Railway Bridge. The bridge was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register in 1999.
The bridge is sited 462.8 kilometres (287.5 miles), from Sydney Central Station

After a walk along the river bank and a few snaps, we were off, heading north on the Castlereagh Highway.

Dubbo to Collarenibri (350kms)

After a short stop at Hunter Park, Gilgandra, where we had morning tea, we carried on towards Coonamble, where it was lunch  that held us up. At Coonamble, in a little rest area, opposite the footy oval, we found three or four other vans enjoying a break. A sign of improving weather, instead of sitting in the van, we dragged the camp chairs out and set them up on a grassy strip and enjoyed the sunshine. All this about ten meters from the highway. The passing parade of locals, truckies and other travellers must have thought we were daft.

Instead of going directly to Lightning Ridge, we had decided to detour slightly to Collarenebri and visit an old friend, Braden Hamilton. We'd heard a rumour that Braden was an experienced Ridge tour guide! So after passing through Walgett, we turned off the Highway about fifteen kilometres north of Walgett and travelled another sixty to Collarenebri. Our arrival was well timed, we'd not long pulled up outside No. 43, than Braden appeared, walking home from work.

Braden had lured us to Colly with a promise of the use of his washing machine and we took advantage by getting the bed linen washed and dried. After all this activity, we were all in a hungry mood, so off to the Pub for dinner. As a bonus, we also met the rest of Braden's workmates. Did I mention, Braden and workmates are Ambulance Officers in the NSW Ambulance Service

Day 9—Wednesday, 3rd July

After breakfast, Braden in his capacity as tour guide drove us to the local Aboriginal Cemetery, just a little way out of town.

This was a new experience, to see the way the locals buried their dead. After burial, the graves are left to settle, tall mounds, decorated with plastic flowers and other ornaments. After a while, some three, four or five years, the grave is levelled and a wooden frame is built around the grave which is then back filled and levelled before being decorated with coloured glass and other glass ornaments. Very interesting.

Next, our tour took us via the "back road" to Lightning Ridge. This is an unsealed road of about 100kms which saves about 50kms on the trip on the highway, back towards Walgett and the Castlereagh Highway. The road is wide and well maintained, although there were a couple of rough patches which had been churned up by heavy transports after rain.

We arrived in Lightning Ridge and made a quick visit to the Information Centre, picking up some details of the local "car door" tours. These are a selection of tours of local sights, marked out by different coloured old car doors.

By now though, it was lunch time so we checked in at the Bowling Club and had a feed. Then off on the Yellow Car Door Tour, which took us to The lunitics lookout and one of the original pits, all fenced of now and preserved as a monument to the early opal miners. Other sites were Amigos Castle and the Polish Astronomers Monument, not so much about digging for opals, as the effect on the mind caused by digging for opals. Other car door tours, were the red and blue, in between which we made a visit to the John Murray Gallery.

The last tour, the green car door was based on the drive out to the sunset lookout. Along the way were various markers but the impression was, that the organisers were running out of things to mention. But we set up our camp chairs on a mullock heap and had Happy Hour while we waited for the sunset. Unhappily, the day was clear as a bell, not a cloud in the sky! Most of the great sunsets rely to some extent, the late sun reflected on the clouds. But not bad at all.

After the last shutter click (electronic), we packed all the chairs into Bradens Subaru and headed home, an uneventful drive but not the best time of the day for traveling. We came across sheep and kangaroos wandering along the road verge and we learned about slowing right down when oncoming headlights shortened the range of visability. Of course, as always, lots of roadkill. Home in time for a stroll to the Colly Bowls Club for dinner.