Day 12: Coonamble to Brisbane
17 February 2024
Master Map
Lightning Ridge is a remote opal mining town. It's definitely in the Outback. The website says so even if pdedse's map says it isn't. I've always wanted to go there and it was pretty close to Coonamble and, at a pinch, on the way home. My wife encouraged me to take the opportunity.
That shadowy bastard's back!
Flat and straight. Big sky.
Welcome to Fairlands
Walgett water tower in honour of Jimmy Little, an indigenous Australian musician.
What can you say?
Aside from having recently turned off the main road, I could tell I was approaching Lightning Ridge from the piles of mullock by the road.
By 09:45 I was in Lightning Ridge, had filled up with petrol and was enjoying a cup of coffee and something to eat. It's an interesting place. Rusty cars, trucks and bits of machinery, piles of mullock and roadside signs offering to buy opals abound. There's a hardscrabble feel to the place; houses are small and many need care. Covid and the current difficult economic circumstances may have hit it hard.
More metal art
I had a poke around, discovered that the Gecko's family has a culinary outpost there (it was closed) and moved on.
Lightning Ridge real estate
A statue of Charlie Nettleton who founded the black opal business at Lightning Ridge.
Amigo's Castle is a curious tourist attraction in Lightning Ridge. Built by one man, brick by brick over 20 years, it was closed when I arrived. And when I left too.
This much water is a happy sight out here.
Shortly before crossing the border. Not much leaning going on.
I crossed the border at Hebel, wound the clock back an hour, ticked Dirranbandi off my list of places to go and proceeded to St George where I needed fuel and lunch.
If I've told this story about Queensland and clocks going back before, I apologise.
Queensland has always refused to adopt daylight saving. It is also regarded by the inhabitants of other Australian states as somewhat reactionary, redneck and behind the times. That's mostly because of the state premier of the 1970s and 1980s who held office thanks to a huge gerrymander and thrived on celebrating the state's difference. He was deposed and his party lost office in 1989 after a corruption scandal.
The premier who succeeded him in office once hosted a retired Prime Minister from the 1970s who is alleged to have said, "I enjoy coming to Queensland now. I only have to put my watch back an hour not a whole generation."
The spots in foreground are emus. Seldom seen in the wild by us city dwellers.
Somewhere before Dirrinbandi I came across a sign telling me there was water over the road ahead. Eventually I found it and took this photo which is so over-exposed as to be useless.
Luckily I slowed to take the picture and to have a good look before trying to cross. Why, I hear you ask, would I include the picture? Well, as I was slowing and snapping, a road train came around the corner ahead of me and the world lit up like being near a flash of lightning on a dark night. What you see in the photo is what it looked like. Sort of. The driver had flashed his lights at me. Kind, I thought, he's warning me of a Roller ahead.
Then the truck hit the water. It was probably travelling at 110 kph. Had I been next to him I would have been blasted off the road by the wall of water he threw out. Roller indeed. He was warning me to stop.
(If the term 'Roller' makes no sense, see this post) or watch the Blues Brothers.
Saint George is a pretty enough town, although I'm sure the general ambience was enhanced by the large quantities of rain that have fallen. There was good water in the Balonne River and I sat beside it to eat my lunch.
I stopped for fuel and cold water at Moonie, slightly weary from a reasonably long day and battling a head wind. Two women on Ducatis, who had passed me earlier making excellent speed, asked where I was heading. I said Brisbane. One told me earnestly it was too far away. I said I'd stop if I needed to.
Shortly after leaving Moonie, I turned off onto the Cecil Plains Road which proved more entertaining than the relatively straight roads I'd been on since Lightning Ridge. The scenery was different, there were more corners and some interesting short, sharp undulations. Some of the troughs had a light covering of water.
By the end, near Toowoomba, it again became flat and straight. My attempt to photograph a long line of telegraph poles that looked like they'd been deliberately erected a crazy angles failed, so I've nothing much to show.
There's one telegraph pole at a strange angle in this picture, but of more interest was the storm cloud which, mercifully, was not travelling towards me. The shadowy bastard is still there!
I filled up at Charlton at the top of the Toowoomba by-pass and was home by 19:30. It was dark for the final kilometres which I enjoyed, although I need to adjust the height of the headlight.
I think I was on the road for about 13 hours. I know I rode 946 kilometres for the day. There's something to be said for relatively straight, flat country roads in good condition.
Gee it was good to be back in the saddle giving the odometer a workout.
The band? It didn't do so well. It was great to see the guys again, though. And to ride with them, at least for a bit.
