Jaqhama
Race Dog
- Joined
- May 7, 2006
- Messages
- 619
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Sydney Australia
- Bike
- Kawasaki Super Sherpa
So we weren't going to South Africa...but that didn't mean we couldn't still get to see African animals.
Lin's brother lives at Dubbo, home to the Western Plains Zoo.
So we could stay with him a couple of nights to save camping or cabining.
Another early start, departed Sydney at o dark hundred and rode up into the Blue Mountains again as the sun rose.
Another adventure was about to begin. Before we returned home we would ride out into the north western scrub plains and arid desert areas of Lightning Ridge, the famous opal mining town.
We would avoid a fire that destroyed the building next door to our hotel, an arson attack. We would meet real outback characters. We would ride back out of the desert and down thru the beautiful New England countryside, along secondary winding roads with names like Fossickers way and Thunderbolts Way.
In all we would end up riding almost 3000 kilometers together over a 12 day period.
It was great.
Lets go...
Arriving at the Zoo.
We start our African Safari. The enclosures for the animals at the Western Plains Zoo are huge compared to most normal zoo's.
I thought for a moment this was Wino.
Just hanging around.
The scenic gardens around the zoo are beautiful.
Does anyone remember Daktari?
The otter enclosure was great, completly transparent glass, so you could see a pair of them frolicking around above and below the water. they came right up to us thru the glass.
Lin, feeling a bit horny.
The meercats were wonderful, we could have watched them all day.
We have many pics from the Zoo, but as most are of African animals it seems pointless posting them on an Africa website.
So let's carry on a day or so ahead...
We bid farewell to Lin's brother and headed north, far north, out into the wilds, the area where a lot of the first Mad Max movie was filmed.
The roads are long and empty, speed limits seem needless...not that anyone was doing the speed limit.
Lin and I travelled at about 130 to 140 kph for hours.
An occasional local actually overtook us.
After riding for hours from Dubbo to the small country town of Walgett we arrived at sunset.
There were many aboriginals around, from kids to adults. The majority just loitering around, or walking aimlessly about, or sitting in the shade in doorways and on curbsides.
I asked the petrol station guy about a safe and secure hotel for the night.
He advised there are only 2 motels in Walgett, both have iron barred gates, both have guard dogs at night.
Hmmm...interesting, we had never come across this before.
It might be the norm in South Africa, it is certainly not the norm in New South Wales.
Taking his advice we rode around the corner to the first hotel. To recieve a warm welcome from the owners, Glen and Sue, and we were introduced to our own personal guard dog Patch, a Blue Heeler cattle dog.
Patch fell in love with Lin from the first pat. He never left her side for our entire stay at the motel. He kept guard outside our door all night long and followed Lin around every time she went out of the room.
Talk about puppy love. :roll: :lol:
After dark about 8pm, Lin and I decided to walk over the road to the RSL Club for an evening meal. Glen and Sue advised us to be careful, Walgett is not a safe town at night apparently.
The RSL Club is quite literally less than a 2 minute walk from the hotel, to the street corner, across the road to the club.
But being the catious chap that I am I took my custom made Japanese Tanto knife with me.
The streets are dark, many of the street lights appear to have been broken. Lin and I walked along the actual road, the pavement being made even darker by overhanging trees.
Aboriginal children were everywhere. I said G'day to a couple and got the same in return. We crossed the road and entered the RSL Club.
The next day was Anzac Day. In rememberance of the Australian and New Zeland soldiers who fought in the two world wars.
As soon as we walked inside the Club we were greeted by Daryl, the RSL Club President and fellow motorcyclist. Me being dressed in my Bikernet t-shirt does have advantages it seems.
Daryl made us feel quite at home. And invited us back over to the Club for the free Anzac Day breakfast the next morning.
We ate and chatted to Daryl for an hour or so and then walked back over to the hotel. We idly noticed some aboriginal kids playing around in front of the local National Bank. Again I said G'day and they responded cheerfully. We made it back to the motel without any trouble at all.
To be greeted at the gates by Patch. A quick sniff to assure himself he knew who we were and he led us back into the motel courtyard.
Glen came out and locked the gates. We were two of only four guests, and the others were in ther rooms, so Glen and we chatted and Patch sat at Lin's feet, gazing up at her adoringly.
"You've made a friend there." Glen observed.
Even more so when Lin fed him some tidbits of meat we had left over from a previous meal.
A bit later, as Lin got ready for bed and Patch patrolled the hotel grounds, I was sitting outside having a last ciggie and a cuppa tea when I noticed a red glow in the sky off to one side of the motel.
Sue had told us they had a swimming pool over that way, so I assumed it was the lights, refelecting off of the pool.
Patch was growling a little and kept sniffing the air and running over to check the front gate was locked.
I finished my cuppa and went inside and closed the door.
Up at sunrise the next morning I opened the door to find Patch asleep in front of it. What a great dog he was!
He pushed me aside and went to say good morning to Lin.
I walked over to the bikes to find them covered in ash and bits of burnt paper?
Glen and Sue's 4WD was covered in it, as were the 2 other cars in the courtyard.
I called Glen over and he shook his head and said the locals must have set the nearby rubbish tip on fire again, a frequent occurence he assured us.
I thought maybe someone had tried to torch the motel, I even climbed up on the roof above our room to check. Lots of ash and burnt paper, but no sign the fire had been started here.
Glen reckoned Patch would have been barking his head off if the motel was on fire, and having seen how protective Patch was of his owners and motel and guests I could not help but agree.
Lin and I had a shower and walked back over to the RSL Club for that free Anzac Day brekkie.
The RSL CLub was still there, the National Bank was gone :shock: :!:
All that was left was the brick enclosed vault in the middle.
The police guarding what was left of the bank informed us it had been set alight sometime late last night. A chap whose entire family normally lived in a cabin at the rear of the bank (luckily the mother and children were away with her parents that night) had been awoken by the blaze shining thru his bedroom windows, he had got out just in time, the cabin went up in flames also.
It's indicative of how often this happens in Walgett...the local fire brigade did not even bother turning on their sirens when they came to put the fire out last night. Hence me not waking up when the building next door was ablaze...yes that's right, the Bank was the ajoining building to the motel, only seperated by a fence and a bit of of an alleyway.
The local police office told us that in a town of only 3500 there are about 50 full time cops. Homicide cops, arson, rape, child abuse, special duties and the rapid response riot unit.
My, my..that's about the sum total for where Lin and I live in The Shire, and we have over 200,000 people there.
Never a dull day or night in Walgett if you're a polieman apparently. :shock:
Daryl was upset that they had burnt the bank down on the eve of Anzac Day. Bloody un-Australian!
But he shouted us to our free Anzac Day brekkie and regaled us with local riding tales, so we felt ok about it.
If Lin disliked Walgett before she positively loathed it now.
Back on the street and many of the local on-lookers were obviously amused at the bank's destruction.
Not so Glen and Sue, they had their motel account there and it was one of the few remaining banks in town.
We all looked askance at Patch for not alerting us to the fire last night. He sort of wriggled around and shied over next to Lin.
I think he spent the night guarding us inside our room and to hell with the rest of the motel and the people in it! :lol:
We said goodbye to Glen and Sue, who don't particulaly like living in Walgett, but it was a different place when they bought the motel many years ago. Patch got many pats and hugs and it was with an extremely sorrowful look that he watched Lin and I depart. I'm sure he would have hopped up on her Ducati at the slightest suggestion that we could take him with us. :lol:
Leaving Walgett we headed out into the arid country of the north west of New South Wales.
It hasn't rained here for months..and the photos show it.
Everything looks like this.
Even the local animals have a tough time surviving.
It was hot and dry and dusty.
I avoided an errant semi-trailer driver who almost lost control on a curve in the road as his road-train came roaring towards me, doing at least 140 plus.
We arrived at one of the most famous towns in Australia...the home of the fabled Black Opal.
Pulling in at the tourist information centre, we discovered the local radio station was next door to it.
Jack, a local miner and biker came over to greet us, he then introduced us to Kevin Kelly, his good mate and radio DJ. Within minutes of arriving in Lightning Ridge Kevin mentioned us on his radio show and asked everyone in town to welcome us. Can't do better than that for your first 5 mins in a new town :!:
They were an invalueable source of info on what to see and what not to bother with in LR. A lot of the mine tours are just touristy rubbish, but thanks to them we got to see a real working mine.
Good to keep busy out in the bush.
This piece of equipment has a special meaning for me!
I tried my hand at opal mining, I did not find any..Lin however did a bit later on. :roll:
We left the Walk-In MIne and had a bit of a ride around the large town and surrounding area. Discovering a place where the bloke is nuts for cacti. (We later came across various forms of cacti in our travels hundreds of miles from LR..Lin and I have no doubt it has sprung up around the outer regions from seeds being carried by birds.)
Now you will doubtless have noticed the kidney belt I have wrapped around my chest. :roll:
The roads out here, although tarred, are rough and bouncy, I had not fully recovered from my last fall off the bike...and as the days went by instead of getting better I was getting worse.
We stayed a couple of days in LR just so that I could have a rest from riding the bike for hours every day. It got to the stage where I had trouble taking a breath without wincing in pain.
This is a typical side street in LR. People live right next to their mines. Those little hills of earth are the slag taken out of the earth, checked for opals, and then dumped right beside the hole in the ground it came from.
Not the best looking neighborhoods we've seen.
Some of the original miners cottages are a tad on the small side.
This is where we stayed. Got a discount for being on a bike, got another discount for mentioning Jack and Kevin's recommendation to stay there, actually Kevin lives in one of the other cabins on site here.
Lin relaxing in the humid afternoon heat...and doesn't she look just like GI Jane :?:
This pic kind of reminds me of that castle in Namibia.
A sign here said...two guard dogs off their chain...and trespassers beware..experimental crocodile farm...did they mean they experiment with crocodiles here or what? We thought they were full of crap, just trying to scare the tourists away from the not yet completed castle. Which someone actually built to be their home. Weird!
And speaking of weird... :?:
Fantasia St is a new addition to Lightning Ridge...this is the place that many of the miners who have been fortunate enough to strike it rich build their homes. There are not many houses in this street!
At sunset one night Lin and I wandered over to one of the slag heaps to fossick for opals, the big mining companies dump some slag next to the tourist info centre for the tourists to scavange thru. The day before we arrived a woman found two black opals worth over $20,000. It was big news all over town. Even locals were fossicking around the site.
Lin and I waited until it got dark and most people had left. I already knew you water down the slag so that you can see the rock gleam better, and therefore make it easier to spot an opal.
I never really expected to find any.
Lin was booked on an evening tour in the Glass Lantern House, a cottage made of glass and lit inside at night by hundreds of candles and lanterns.
BUT...she found an opal :!: :shock: :shock:
Some 10 minutes after she found the first one I suggested she would be late for her Lantern Tour.
I hesitate to repeat her reply. (But I shall ).
"Fk the lantern tour, help me find some more opals, go and get some more water!" :lol: :lol: :lol:
Oh oh...she had opal fever, I've heard about it but never seen it.
And bugger me if a few moments later she didn't find another one. :shock:
And then another, all clustered together in the same area, obviously from the same chunk of rock, that had been crushed up by the grinder, and the opal in it missed.
This is Lin just as she found another piece.
You can see that wild gleam in her eyes yeah? Scary.
Lin's brother lives at Dubbo, home to the Western Plains Zoo.
So we could stay with him a couple of nights to save camping or cabining.
Another early start, departed Sydney at o dark hundred and rode up into the Blue Mountains again as the sun rose.
Another adventure was about to begin. Before we returned home we would ride out into the north western scrub plains and arid desert areas of Lightning Ridge, the famous opal mining town.
We would avoid a fire that destroyed the building next door to our hotel, an arson attack. We would meet real outback characters. We would ride back out of the desert and down thru the beautiful New England countryside, along secondary winding roads with names like Fossickers way and Thunderbolts Way.
In all we would end up riding almost 3000 kilometers together over a 12 day period.
It was great.
Lets go...
Arriving at the Zoo.
We start our African Safari. The enclosures for the animals at the Western Plains Zoo are huge compared to most normal zoo's.
I thought for a moment this was Wino.
Just hanging around.
The scenic gardens around the zoo are beautiful.
Does anyone remember Daktari?
The otter enclosure was great, completly transparent glass, so you could see a pair of them frolicking around above and below the water. they came right up to us thru the glass.
Lin, feeling a bit horny.
The meercats were wonderful, we could have watched them all day.
We have many pics from the Zoo, but as most are of African animals it seems pointless posting them on an Africa website.
So let's carry on a day or so ahead...
We bid farewell to Lin's brother and headed north, far north, out into the wilds, the area where a lot of the first Mad Max movie was filmed.
The roads are long and empty, speed limits seem needless...not that anyone was doing the speed limit.
Lin and I travelled at about 130 to 140 kph for hours.
An occasional local actually overtook us.
After riding for hours from Dubbo to the small country town of Walgett we arrived at sunset.
There were many aboriginals around, from kids to adults. The majority just loitering around, or walking aimlessly about, or sitting in the shade in doorways and on curbsides.
I asked the petrol station guy about a safe and secure hotel for the night.
He advised there are only 2 motels in Walgett, both have iron barred gates, both have guard dogs at night.
Hmmm...interesting, we had never come across this before.
It might be the norm in South Africa, it is certainly not the norm in New South Wales.
Taking his advice we rode around the corner to the first hotel. To recieve a warm welcome from the owners, Glen and Sue, and we were introduced to our own personal guard dog Patch, a Blue Heeler cattle dog.
Patch fell in love with Lin from the first pat. He never left her side for our entire stay at the motel. He kept guard outside our door all night long and followed Lin around every time she went out of the room.
Talk about puppy love. :roll: :lol:
After dark about 8pm, Lin and I decided to walk over the road to the RSL Club for an evening meal. Glen and Sue advised us to be careful, Walgett is not a safe town at night apparently.
The RSL Club is quite literally less than a 2 minute walk from the hotel, to the street corner, across the road to the club.
But being the catious chap that I am I took my custom made Japanese Tanto knife with me.
The streets are dark, many of the street lights appear to have been broken. Lin and I walked along the actual road, the pavement being made even darker by overhanging trees.
Aboriginal children were everywhere. I said G'day to a couple and got the same in return. We crossed the road and entered the RSL Club.
The next day was Anzac Day. In rememberance of the Australian and New Zeland soldiers who fought in the two world wars.
As soon as we walked inside the Club we were greeted by Daryl, the RSL Club President and fellow motorcyclist. Me being dressed in my Bikernet t-shirt does have advantages it seems.
Daryl made us feel quite at home. And invited us back over to the Club for the free Anzac Day breakfast the next morning.
We ate and chatted to Daryl for an hour or so and then walked back over to the hotel. We idly noticed some aboriginal kids playing around in front of the local National Bank. Again I said G'day and they responded cheerfully. We made it back to the motel without any trouble at all.
To be greeted at the gates by Patch. A quick sniff to assure himself he knew who we were and he led us back into the motel courtyard.
Glen came out and locked the gates. We were two of only four guests, and the others were in ther rooms, so Glen and we chatted and Patch sat at Lin's feet, gazing up at her adoringly.
"You've made a friend there." Glen observed.
Even more so when Lin fed him some tidbits of meat we had left over from a previous meal.
A bit later, as Lin got ready for bed and Patch patrolled the hotel grounds, I was sitting outside having a last ciggie and a cuppa tea when I noticed a red glow in the sky off to one side of the motel.
Sue had told us they had a swimming pool over that way, so I assumed it was the lights, refelecting off of the pool.
Patch was growling a little and kept sniffing the air and running over to check the front gate was locked.
I finished my cuppa and went inside and closed the door.
Up at sunrise the next morning I opened the door to find Patch asleep in front of it. What a great dog he was!
He pushed me aside and went to say good morning to Lin.
I walked over to the bikes to find them covered in ash and bits of burnt paper?
Glen and Sue's 4WD was covered in it, as were the 2 other cars in the courtyard.
I called Glen over and he shook his head and said the locals must have set the nearby rubbish tip on fire again, a frequent occurence he assured us.
I thought maybe someone had tried to torch the motel, I even climbed up on the roof above our room to check. Lots of ash and burnt paper, but no sign the fire had been started here.
Glen reckoned Patch would have been barking his head off if the motel was on fire, and having seen how protective Patch was of his owners and motel and guests I could not help but agree.
Lin and I had a shower and walked back over to the RSL Club for that free Anzac Day brekkie.
The RSL CLub was still there, the National Bank was gone :shock: :!:
All that was left was the brick enclosed vault in the middle.
The police guarding what was left of the bank informed us it had been set alight sometime late last night. A chap whose entire family normally lived in a cabin at the rear of the bank (luckily the mother and children were away with her parents that night) had been awoken by the blaze shining thru his bedroom windows, he had got out just in time, the cabin went up in flames also.
It's indicative of how often this happens in Walgett...the local fire brigade did not even bother turning on their sirens when they came to put the fire out last night. Hence me not waking up when the building next door was ablaze...yes that's right, the Bank was the ajoining building to the motel, only seperated by a fence and a bit of of an alleyway.
The local police office told us that in a town of only 3500 there are about 50 full time cops. Homicide cops, arson, rape, child abuse, special duties and the rapid response riot unit.
My, my..that's about the sum total for where Lin and I live in The Shire, and we have over 200,000 people there.
Never a dull day or night in Walgett if you're a polieman apparently. :shock:
Daryl was upset that they had burnt the bank down on the eve of Anzac Day. Bloody un-Australian!
But he shouted us to our free Anzac Day brekkie and regaled us with local riding tales, so we felt ok about it.
If Lin disliked Walgett before she positively loathed it now.
Back on the street and many of the local on-lookers were obviously amused at the bank's destruction.
Not so Glen and Sue, they had their motel account there and it was one of the few remaining banks in town.
We all looked askance at Patch for not alerting us to the fire last night. He sort of wriggled around and shied over next to Lin.
I think he spent the night guarding us inside our room and to hell with the rest of the motel and the people in it! :lol:
We said goodbye to Glen and Sue, who don't particulaly like living in Walgett, but it was a different place when they bought the motel many years ago. Patch got many pats and hugs and it was with an extremely sorrowful look that he watched Lin and I depart. I'm sure he would have hopped up on her Ducati at the slightest suggestion that we could take him with us. :lol:
Leaving Walgett we headed out into the arid country of the north west of New South Wales.
It hasn't rained here for months..and the photos show it.
Everything looks like this.
Even the local animals have a tough time surviving.
It was hot and dry and dusty.
I avoided an errant semi-trailer driver who almost lost control on a curve in the road as his road-train came roaring towards me, doing at least 140 plus.
We arrived at one of the most famous towns in Australia...the home of the fabled Black Opal.
Pulling in at the tourist information centre, we discovered the local radio station was next door to it.
Jack, a local miner and biker came over to greet us, he then introduced us to Kevin Kelly, his good mate and radio DJ. Within minutes of arriving in Lightning Ridge Kevin mentioned us on his radio show and asked everyone in town to welcome us. Can't do better than that for your first 5 mins in a new town :!:
They were an invalueable source of info on what to see and what not to bother with in LR. A lot of the mine tours are just touristy rubbish, but thanks to them we got to see a real working mine.
Good to keep busy out in the bush.
This piece of equipment has a special meaning for me!
I tried my hand at opal mining, I did not find any..Lin however did a bit later on. :roll:
We left the Walk-In MIne and had a bit of a ride around the large town and surrounding area. Discovering a place where the bloke is nuts for cacti. (We later came across various forms of cacti in our travels hundreds of miles from LR..Lin and I have no doubt it has sprung up around the outer regions from seeds being carried by birds.)
Now you will doubtless have noticed the kidney belt I have wrapped around my chest. :roll:
The roads out here, although tarred, are rough and bouncy, I had not fully recovered from my last fall off the bike...and as the days went by instead of getting better I was getting worse.
We stayed a couple of days in LR just so that I could have a rest from riding the bike for hours every day. It got to the stage where I had trouble taking a breath without wincing in pain.
This is a typical side street in LR. People live right next to their mines. Those little hills of earth are the slag taken out of the earth, checked for opals, and then dumped right beside the hole in the ground it came from.
Not the best looking neighborhoods we've seen.
Some of the original miners cottages are a tad on the small side.
This is where we stayed. Got a discount for being on a bike, got another discount for mentioning Jack and Kevin's recommendation to stay there, actually Kevin lives in one of the other cabins on site here.
Lin relaxing in the humid afternoon heat...and doesn't she look just like GI Jane :?:
This pic kind of reminds me of that castle in Namibia.
A sign here said...two guard dogs off their chain...and trespassers beware..experimental crocodile farm...did they mean they experiment with crocodiles here or what? We thought they were full of crap, just trying to scare the tourists away from the not yet completed castle. Which someone actually built to be their home. Weird!
And speaking of weird... :?:
Fantasia St is a new addition to Lightning Ridge...this is the place that many of the miners who have been fortunate enough to strike it rich build their homes. There are not many houses in this street!
At sunset one night Lin and I wandered over to one of the slag heaps to fossick for opals, the big mining companies dump some slag next to the tourist info centre for the tourists to scavange thru. The day before we arrived a woman found two black opals worth over $20,000. It was big news all over town. Even locals were fossicking around the site.
Lin and I waited until it got dark and most people had left. I already knew you water down the slag so that you can see the rock gleam better, and therefore make it easier to spot an opal.
I never really expected to find any.
Lin was booked on an evening tour in the Glass Lantern House, a cottage made of glass and lit inside at night by hundreds of candles and lanterns.
BUT...she found an opal :!: :shock: :shock:
Some 10 minutes after she found the first one I suggested she would be late for her Lantern Tour.
I hesitate to repeat her reply. (But I shall
)."Fk the lantern tour, help me find some more opals, go and get some more water!" :lol: :lol: :lol:
Oh oh...she had opal fever, I've heard about it but never seen it.
And bugger me if a few moments later she didn't find another one. :shock:
And then another, all clustered together in the same area, obviously from the same chunk of rock, that had been crushed up by the grinder, and the opal in it missed.
This is Lin just as she found another piece.
You can see that wild gleam in her eyes yeah? Scary.
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