Gulargambone to Lightning Ridge

The sun was shining as we rattled, squeaked and bounced our way towards Lightning Ridge on a very bumpy road. Travelling with sick kids does have one advantage they sleep! Chloe slept nearly all the way and Lucy slept for just under half of it. We stopped for a quick lunch at Walgett before arriving at the Opal Caravan Park in Lightning Ridge. This is a great park only about 3 years old with a nice big clean amenities block. 
1st stop was a dip in the artesian bath and at 42 degrees was pretty hot but really nice once you got used to it.
Everyone woke up slightly better the next day and we were all keen to try a bit of fossicking. There is a big pile at the tourist information centre that you can fossick for free and we all managed to find at least 1 opal each. They were all extremely tiny but that didn't matter we were so excited to find any at all!

After lunch we headed to the Chamber of the Black Hand, if you are ever in Lightning Ridge I recommend this tour. A miner who had no luck mining opals started doing carvings in the walls & roof of his mine and now charges people to go into his mine and look. These are amazing and the kids thought it was fantastic.

The weather was just perfect for our 2 days in Lightning Ridge, on our 3rd morning the wind picked up, the clouds rolled in and it was alot cooler so we packed up and headed in search of somewhere warmer.