Mining country. Blinding sunshine bouncing off piles of rubble heaped up every few metres next to holes carved out of the ground like the butchery of a madman ripping the internal organs out of a giant and scattering them like baptisms. We drove in singing ‘I’m sorry I’m always pissed and I’m sorry I exist.’
Honestly; it was hard coming from Aboriginal fish traps to mining. I don’t know what to tell you – as a socialist greenie, I’m not a fan of mining. But before you click away, I’m about to go through some kinda character journey here, so bear with me. You could just skip the next paragraph.
While the fish traps talked about respecting land; mining by definition exploits it. Drag what you want out of the ground, then move on. Let’s be honest, often it’s pretty destructive; even if you’re not mining fossil fuels which accelerate climate change. It uses an incredible amount of water, in an incredibly dry state, ostensibly to wash dirt, in this case. Large companies dig holes the size of small villages in the ground and leave the scar, obliterating biodiversity and heritage – often choosing to cop the fine for cultural heritage destruction as profits far outweigh it. Just look at Rio Tinto (Britishers – look this up, it was a Fucking Scandal.) How can I connect with people that make a living out of this, even if, you know, it’s the only job in the area and all that?
Thanks for sticking with me, we’re moving on. The point is: Lightning Ridge kinda aint like that.
Mining in this crazy place is for opals. Lightning Ridge has the largest deposits of black opal in the world. They’re not black, btw, they’re just way more blue and colour-intense than the milky iridescent ones you’ll have seen, something to do with black potch behind the stone…or something… look, I’m no chemist; google it yourselves. And I arrived thinking, ‘oh, this will be historical, they used to do mining here.’
Nope. Still doing it. Which, growing up in a country where mining is not (anymore) an industry, I find bizarre. So, arriving and doing a tour round an underground mine was confronting. Lovely lady in the shop was desperate to sell us an opal, and talk about opals; she’s got props and trays and display pieces all for explaining how the opal gets so damn blue and got ‘em all out to show me. We looked around. Had furtive and intense whispered conversations. The Gentleman wants an opal. Splendid, I say, get an opal. Why do I have to be involved with this? I don’t want a shiny symbol of earth’s destruction. Why do you hate me? he asks; I don’t, I say, just buy a freakin’ opal if you want one, but I’m not wearing it. He buys an opal. The lady asks if it’ll be for a ring or a necklace. The Gentleman mumbles his way out of this one while I saunter my way out the shop.
We went to the IGA then aimed at our air BnB; a cute old wooden schoolhouse set down an unsealed road surrounded by trees and … holes in the ground with heaps of crap next to them. I glumly wonder what the fuck we’re going to do here for two days and whose bloody fault is this; oh that’s right – I remember, my boss recommended it. -_-
But the point is; the point IS… it’s kind of awesome. I genuinely left thinking, ‘fuck, do I want to get an opal mine?’ for fleeting seconds. There are no enormous mines in Lightning Ridge, they are all tiny individual claims owned by madmen or couples, with glazed, glittering opals for eyes, all excited, optimistic, creative and desperate. It’s the real pioneering spirit of Australia – exploration, discovery, hope and tea. Something, and I mean a kind of madness, has got in to the people there.
What is wonderful about all these people who are on a lifelong quest to discover eye-watering hoards of beautiful, useless little things is that they don’t seem to be consumerist or greedy in any other way. While looking for enough opals to cover a house, many live in caravans, with crazy car seats ripped out of some abandoned vehicle and lassoed with bungies to the back of the gas bottle as their veranda. Art abounds; John Murray lives up there and has a gallery (look him up!), people’s gardens are demarcated by empty oil barrels and decorated splendidly with handmade…I dunno, scarecrows and things; wind chimes, plants, coloured stones and quirky little signs saying ‘where the bloody hell are we.’ Everyone has a mine in their back garden. Even the place we stayed! And the owner was an artist and her mother was a writer and the house had a wee book about how the building came to be in their family and …well. That on its own was gripping narrative. Everyone is hoping to find their fortune; just one more foot! but only just about find enough opals to live on. Everyone is an artist, a poet, a scientist, a jewellery maker – and there’s a sort of fever and excitement to the place.
One chap, an Italian from Treviso, came out to mine in his late twenties. He never found a damn thing, then in the afternoons, taught himself to build and constructed a stone castle. True story. Built scaffolding from planks of wood balanced on oil drums and carried all the stone up himself. Kinda like that Ricetti guy from Griffith, but maybe madder and vehemently still alive. Lives in a caravan next to the castle with hoards of … stuff; old saucepans and general ironware piled up. Another chap built a house entirely out of glass bottles, with a little doghouse, too. There is a pub ‘in the scrub,’ we had to drive 40km to get to, over a lot of unsealed roads that were hella bumpy and it was quirky and beautiful and amazing and I had a chat for about an hour with the most irrepressibly energetic and wonderful woman about her band’s incarnations from Dry Heat to Just Us. She’s gigged everywhere from Bourke to Mallacoota. She and her husband also mined, she said, and she looked suspiciously over her shoulder every time she mentioned her claim and whispered ‘where we think there are Some’ through gritted teeth. She was an inspiring and warm human being. We went to the Artesian Bore Baths which was the whole reason we’d come, thanks to my boss. These are glorious hot baths drawing water from the Artesian basin which is the size of bloody Queensland. As we slid into the 42 degree water and watched a splendid sunset, surrounded by silver hoards relaxing in the water (which gave the place a sort of refined and family tone), talking in Polish and Italian, and reflected on the madness and wonder of the place, I forgave Rachel. Then we had dinner at a restaurant I… shall not name, where the plates were dusty, the waitress got everything hilariously wrong (she brought the starters, which we fell ravenously upon; she cleared the plates and said conspiratorially, ‘how about some dessert?’ How about the mains? we suggested. How about a whole bottle between us, instead of just a glass, how about the Bolognese instead of the puttanesca, and how bout, please please, cooking my pork all the way through without dallying with medium rare or other caprices?) and we drank a pleasing bottle of Penfolds and had a jolly good laugh.
I guess the point of travelling is to learn. To meet people. To understand things with more nuance. I know this intellectually, that’s why I do it. But to be presented with a bunch of people who do something I think is wrong for the world, and then really really like them, forces you to look at a person holistically. Obvs. It removes prejudice, which comes only from ignorance. Because that’s what making a judgement about all miners before you know any, is. Travel, and meeting and learning about people forces you to not see in black and white but to look at all the other bits of people, and focus on the things you can agree on, and enjoy together, not the things that divide you. Try remembering that the next time you argue about Brexit. Well, we loved the place and were pretty gutted to leave the acres of sky and the surprise emus, rivers, red kangaroos and red earth and mad, warm, and wonderful people.
We drove to Orange. Got pissed at the wineries. Bought some books.