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HEBEL
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Hebel, last stop in Queensland.
Not much here, except the usual outback Pub and a Cafe accross the road.
We ate at the Cafe, food was nothing to rave about; then we walked across the road for a coldie.
It was nice sitting under the outside awening in the sun. I managed to take a couple of photos of the little birds flitting around looking for a few tidbits.
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ACROSS THE BORDER AND INTO NSW
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Well hubby was happy.
Finally we hit NSW. Hubby had been complaining about the QLD roads, but now had to confess that the NSW roads are not much better.
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LIGHTNING RIDGE
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Lightning Ridge is a place you have to exprience.
Once.
Don't think we'll come back.
So, the reason why I say this is that we were intregued to hear that most of the town does not have street names nor addresses. Even the GPS cannot find people. We could also see that the fossikers here are not a tidy lot. They just leave their dirt piles. Aparently, in the town area, you are not allowed to dig for opals. Which has led people to do all sorts of things to hide their digging efforts. Use your immagination. 😉 We also learnt that people here do not make a showy display of their riches, at least not on the outside of their aparently humble abodes.
We noticed that there is another thing to see apart from opals. That is the various art displays around town by a fella called John Murray. The Flying Kombie Van pictured above is one of them. Not to mention Stanley the Emu on the outskirts of town, made from old VW parts.
I suppose the artist side comes out in people when there's not much else to do.
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I liked a couple of old miners huts in the main street. There is a Bottle House but when I checked that out, aparently they charge $10 per person for a look. Yeh.... No thanks. I just took a free photo from the outside as we drove past.
There is also a free Artesian Mineral Spring pool which is not far from the Caravan Park that we stayed in.
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BIG 4 OPAL CARAVAN PARK
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Unfortunately, a very impersonal experience. $55 a night, for this?... We only needed our lodging here for 2 nights as I had to work. If it wasn't for that, there is no way I would pay this much to stay on a piece of dirt with no bush nor character.
The only thing that was good was the Mel & Susie Comedy show. More about that soon.
What annoyed us was that we were able to check out late on our departure day so that we could join the Mel & Susie tagalong tour, however as soon as that finished, we were the first ones to depart and head back to the Big 4 and they called us to ask where we were as someone needed to take our site. What tha?... I took a photo showing the almost empty caravan park. Not sure what was so special about our spot?...
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MEL & SUSIE
BUSH VERSE & COMEDY
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These guys perform every night at the Caravan Park. They are totally hillarious. Check out my video below.
Mel, the lady on the left was born and lived most of her life around these outback opal mining towns. Mel's humour consisted mainly of stories about her grandfather. Susie, the sidekick from Scotland was absolutely hillarious with her add-lib humour.
We enjoyed their show so much that we decided to join their tagalong tour of the property they bought. We were assured that the caravan park would allow us a late checkout so that we could attend.
We all had a walk through the original house which was built with whatever could be rummaged up and then enjoyed a nice fire and comfy seating in the new house. We had a tour around the yard where Mel & Susie had made different tin objects and a fence made out of old Singer sewing machines. We saw their old tour bus and a cute little gypsy caravan that they intend to make into B&B accommodation.
Then we were shown into a big shed where they had all of their books and trophies and they performed for us again there. See video below. We were then treated with scones, jam and cream made by Mel. They were very nice indeed.
As I touched on before, the only good thing about Lightning Ridge is the Mel & Susie show.
See the last photo here? Well I was impressed!
But that didn't last long. Susie admitted that she had touched it up somewhat. Made us promise not to expose them on the net. Well no one reads my pages, so I can innocently say, "It wasn't me!".
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MAPS
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VIDEOS
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