Or indeed for Opals or Emeralds.  The next part of our journey was to take us from Lightning Ridge (hence opal) all the way north to Roger and Lindy Lewis’s cotton and cattle farm at Comet, which is just outside Emerald (hence emerald).  Tish-boom!  

Richard had carefully planned an itinerary (my input was to agree) and he and Trish duly arrived beside us at the Opal CP in LR before we ventured off to see what that metropolis had to offer.  Well, opals as it turned out.  The town is literally littered with signs promoting opal mine tours, opal fossicking, opal galleries and of course, any amount of “buying opals” and “selling opals”.  Fortunately, both Trish and Lesley can’t stand an opal, so our wallets remained closed. Instead, we followed the “Points of Interest” map to see such curiosities as the House of Bottles, the House of Cans, and even went to visit Lunatic Lookout and discovered the Yellow Car Door tour by accident.  Nonetheless, the artesian bore baths looked good enough to visit the day.

An early morning hot bath (about 40°C) with lots of locals and a few visitors introduced us to the local joke, told as you’re walking towards the baths:  “Are you guys going to the baths?  They’re closed today y’know!”  Hilarious!

A short mine tour at the Walk In Mine was good enough for us – many of the tours on offer go for endless hours but mercifully, they were all booked out.  A coffee at the Opal Street Café (of Walgett fame), a quick repositioning of ATGANI because I had unwittingly parked in front of the public water bowser for everyone else (not cross, but “not happy Jan”) and we were on our way to Nindigully. 

Crossing the border into Queensland at Hebel, I was looking forward to the Hebel Gate, but if it actually exists, we failed to see it.  More successful were sausages from Rusty, your friendly Dirranbandi butcher, but the pies across the road were disappointing, despite having been recommended by some random and obviously demented campers.  The self-serve diesel pump was US.  Thus concludes Introduction to Dirranbandi.  

Silo art at Thallon led us on to Nindigully which is basically a big, old, classic country pub and a large free camping area.  Maybe 30-40 vans and campers were there each night, on the side of the slowly-receding Moonie River.  Lots of coming and going each day but we picked our spot and settled in.  It was only a couple of nights off full moon and looked amazing as we headed for a drink at dusk.

Affectionately known as The Gully, it’s famous for a few things:  a B&S (September if you’re tempted), a New Year’s Eve event, a bar t-shirt that announces itself as NindiFu*&%ngGully but without the special characters, some Campdrafting and above all, The Road Train Burger!  Because we can’t help ourselves, for lunch the next day we ordered one to share between all four of us.  Fair’s fair – it’s recommended for 2-4 people but should be 6-8 imho.  Talk about big.  No further food that day for anyone and onion ring reprise in the morning (destined to become a culinary icon).  The pics say it all. All in all,👍👍

Our re-vamped firepit and electric chainsaw were well used, firewood was plentiful, remarkable birds were in short supply, however we saw some Magpie Geese (a primitive form, you understand), and were introduced to Grey Headed Warblers.  (For anyone at a loss, Richard is our Birdman Laureate.)  Enough! Moving on and north through St George to Roma, we had another “memory lane” moment when we sat down to lunch with Bill Sheehan in Roma – fantastic to see such a good friend again and, of course, conversation revolved around stuff we once did and stuff we have still to do.

An overnighter at Ups and Downs farm stay was fine but we had Carnarvon Gorge in our sights. Our campsite, Takarakka at Carnarvon Gorge, has been re-named as Breeze Resorts (why??) but that didn’t stop it being possibly our best caravan park so far.  Huge grounds, lots of trees, kangaroos wandering as if in control, Apostle birds and White-winged Choughs in abundance (I promise, it’ll stop soon).  Goodness, even a laundry.  After all, we may not have washed for 48 hours! 👍👍

The walks are wonderful and we now wished we’d done more.  Should you go there (you should!), gird up your loins and do the 20+km walk up the Gorge.  The multi-day 87 km Great Walk would be even better but you’ve got to carry the load.  We’d go back again.

It was Trish’s birthday so we roasted a chook, drank Billecart, gave her RiceCream and sent her to bed with Covid (alright, not Covid, just a bad cold.  Of course she tested!!)  A complete success for everyone except the birthday girl herself.

Leaving Carnarvon, all too soon, we headed up-the-page through Rolleston (excellent community organised coffee cart in the park; fantastic renovated Queenslander) to Comet. 

The last leg of this 10 day sojourn was to drop in on Roger and Lindy Lewis, owners of Lurline, a fine cotton and cattle and random other stuff property.  All we boys were in the same year at school and what a wonderful evening we had.  Roger drove us around the property, patiently answered dozens of questions about cotton, showed us a Ludwig Leichhardt Dig Tree, and in the way of proper farmers, talked about the price of cattle and power and machinery and the likelihood of rain etc etc etc.  For city folk like us, it was wonderful.

But there’s more.  Champagne and beer around the world’s best firepit, a ridiculous video call with Chis Wilson in Thailand (last seen by us 40 years ago), a delicious dinner, more wine and finally home to bed in ATGANI, parked out the front!  It would be reasonable to think that was enough hospitality but next morning, it was coffee and muesli and fruit and bacon and eggs and another couple of kilos added.  A true delight.

This particular excellent adventure was over, so Richard and Trish headed towards Eidsvold then Brisbane.  We fooled everyone by saying we were going west but turned to the east for a couple of days in Blackdown NP where there would be only self-sufficiency and where the road was described as awful.  After all this success, what could possibly go wrong?