White Cliffs

On leaving Broken Hill early in the morning we headed for White Cliffs just short of a 3 hour trip, we planned to only overnight here but wanted to see as much as we could we did not stop till we were booked into the caravan park (a dust bowl which was cheap and clean).

On arrival we were a little alarmed to see the water was OK for showering but needed to be well boiled before drinking, Showers Yes drinking No luckily we still had plenty of drinking water in containers and wine to drink at night. So all good once in Cobar I could flush the system to clean the pipes as the main reason the water was bad to drink it was full of chlorine, another words just like the water in swimming pools.

We unhooked the van set up the awning and the shade-wall to give a little privacy as it faced the entrance of the park, (It also had people asking where we got it from a good conversation starter) then set off to explore this Opal mining town of 200 permanent residents which swells during March to October when the long-term regular visitors come to town to mine Opals during the cooler months.

We explored the Underground Hotel including the Museum they have on White Cliffs and the construction of the hotel itself, this would be an interesting place to stay especially during the hotter months of the year, and also some of the Opal dealers the Best of these is “Southern Cross Opals” they had the better quality and at reasonable prices (I think Carol might have been off as she only interested in one Opal which the bank manager would have frowned upon if we bought it at $6,000) there were many Opals which would not raised the ire of the bank manager which normally would have interested Carol, the owner then invited us to see his other shop in the morning before we left.

Upon returning to the van we met two of these regulars who were staying in a basic cabin near us, after a long conversation they invited us to join them as the Sportsman’s Club for “Sunday Roast of the Day” a meal prepared by the members and the community every Sunday and for what it cost us it was the best value for money meal we have had for a very long time, it was at this dinner they also introduced us to other parttime residents of White Cliffs there for the Opal Mining Season, these people form an important part of the community, unlike most small rural towns they were regarded as “LOCALS” and not “BLOW-INS”. They told us how the ANZAC Memorial was “Tarted Up” a bit using the community.

We packed up reasonable early as we were going to Joe’s Opals to see the cheaper range from Southern Cross Opals Cheaper being the operative word here the quality did not interest us so saying good bye to the owner and the president of the Sportsman’s Club (Yep he greeted us at the club the night before) we headed off to our next scheduled stop two nights in Cobar with stops at Wilcannia for Morning tea and Emmdale Road House for lunch

 

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