Page 238 - Mit dem Wohnwagen durch Australien

WHITE CLIFFS
We like the Outback and the little towns and hamlets in the hinterland. White Cliffs is a very small hamlet and has
only 112 inhabitants of which 11 schoolchildren and Trillions of flies. The village would be totally without importance,
if there were not some of most beautiful opals of the world. After White Cliffs the asphalted roads end and even that
was closed for a while recently because of the floods. Thanks to them, the outback is now as green as the Garden
of Eden. After 10 years of draught a whole generation of school kids has seen green grass for the first time in their
life. As late as last year Kangaroos, sheep and wild goats came into the village to forage in the small well protected
gardens. Now the animals lie thick and fat in the shade and enjoy a snooze. White Cliffs looks like a pocked moon
landscape. Around the houses there a hundreds smaller and bigger craters and hills of whitish stone, testimony to
busy opal mining. Most inhabitants live underground adjacent to their mines. The climate is very agreeable about 18
to 22 C despite the heat outside. Every fortnight a little truck comes with veggies, fruit and bred which are sold on
the veranda of the hotel. The general store has a little meat and convenience food in the freezer and that’s it. If
people want more, they drive once a month over 300 km to Broken Hill to shop and fill their freezer.

The Campground is ok but has no shade and the water is not safe to drink. There are some rainwater tanks which
are full. We boil it since we do not have a water filter in the caravan. One of the first solar plants was built here in the
80s. It produced steam and then electricity and is now a museum piece.

On our way to Lake Perry we take gravel roads, tracks and barely visible station tracks. We traverse rivulets and
smaller or bigger holes in the ground. After many years of lying dry the lake is filling up slowly and offers many birds
a welcome oasis. Despite the heat I wear long trousers and long sleeved shirt in addition to that we wear our
becoming fly nets over the head; otherwise you can’t bear the flies. They try to crawl into every cavity on your face,
ears, nose, mouth and eyes. I do not know what is so interesting in there.

We are most fascinated by the Opals. Almost each mine has a smaller or bigger shop where one can admire and
buy the most beautiful pieces. For the first time we see a pineapple opal. They are called this because they look like
little pineapple and are only found here in White Cliffs. Very special are also the fossil opal, mussels, fish, bones and
opalised wood. Recently even an opalised skeleton of a dinosaur was found nearby. We treat ourselves to a cooling
Spider, a fizzy drink with some vanilla ice cream in it, in a little café in one of the mines. There we discover jewellery
of Barbara Gasche, a German goldsmith, whose work has raised quite some attention in Europe in the seventies.
She exhibited her work in Zurich Bellerive Museum and now lives in White Cliffs.

FIRST FLOOD SIGNS
We are leaving White Cliffs and drive to Cobar, a copper/gold mining town with a huge open cut goldmine, then to
Bourke, to see how the floods are coming down the rivers and ultimately heading for Lightning Ridge, the ultimate
black Opal town, where we plan to spend Easter, floods permitting. We already know that the Kidman Highway is
not passable beyond Bourke anymore and that the Easter Rodeo in Lightning Ridge has been cancelled, but we are
hopeful that the roads there stay open a while longer.
Back o‘ Bourke
It is said: You don’t know Australia until you know Bourke. This is where legends were born. Bourke has hosted
more than its share of notorious Bushrangers. Part of the reason for this were the huge cattle stations which were
created here in the pioneer days. The cattle king Kidman owned almost as much land as all of England and others
were not much smaller. Bourke had a large harbour on the Darling. Wool, cotton and meat were shipped from here.
In return the ships brought goods for the daily life to the outback. These were transported to the hinterland by
14head ox teams and wagons or by Camel caravan. The Darling River was not very dependable. In one year it
carried massive floods, other years during draughts it barely showed water and if, only in the occasional pool and in
both times, steamers could not pass. The old bridge in Bourke stems from that time. Its access ramp was slightly
curved. Rumour had it at the time, that this was necessary, because the publican nearby would not want to sell his
pub around which the ramp curls. Far from it. The reason for the curve was the long ox teams which could not turn
into a road at a right angle but gently had to turn along a curve.

We regaled ourselves with a happy hour beer in the pub. It was built in 1983 and is one of the oldest in the country.
We sat elbow to elbow with workers from the environs. A cheeky one offered a little snake to me for stroking.
Unfortunately I had to politely decline. Emboldened by his mate, another one invited me to participate in the bridge
run. On the wall I saw a large blackboard with dozens of names of people who had done the run. The rules however,
specified that you had to leave all your clothes except for your boots in front of the pub. Regrettably I had to put him
off until New Year.