Having read about three outback pubs that were hidden outside of Lightning Ridge in the opal mine fields, we were on a mission to find at least one of them. We made it to the area ok, and saw the signs to one, but then spent the next 10 minutes driving around the most bizarre landscape of eclectic houses I think we have ever seen. It was a ghost town with not a single person in sight, except one we saw for a moment before he scurried away, which gave us the feeling that they saw the tourists coming and everyone ran inside! We eventually found someone in the local shop who pointed us to one of the pubs – “it’s just down the road and around the bend”. Given there were no clear roads but just dirt tracks driving around houses and mine shafts, that didn’t seem very helpful. Somehow the directions proved accurate and the Club in the Scrub came into view. Cheers came over the UHF from us all and we pulled up and headed inside to be greeted by a room of about 30 women in the middle of an intense game of bingo – that explained where all the women were at least. We enjoyed a well earned beer and plate of hot chips while the kids played outside.
As we left the club, we hit our first major section of dirt road, although it was in good condition so 80-90km/h was still possible. Not long into the dirt though, the Phairs came over the radio saying they had blown a tyre and were pulling over so we all stopped on the side of the road amongst the scrub with no sign of habitation in sight while they changed the tyre. The boys honed their survival skills with Oli’s slingshot (thanks Uncle Charlie) and the myriad of small rocks lying around trying to hit a dead tree, while the girls played a much more civilised game of elastics in the shade.
About 30 minutes later we were on our way again, but not 5 minutes had passed before Emma’s voice came over the radio again, this time reporting that a rogue rock had smashed their rear window and they were stopping to fix it. As Chris and Emma, with the help of James, channeled their inner Macgyver, they grabbed a roll of duct tape and a yoga mat and after another 30 minutes they had a brand new (but slightly less transparent) rear window which lasted the rest of their trip without issue. Is there anything duct tape can’t fix?
For the rest of the way to Bourke, although we were all thinking it, that third piece of bad luck thankfully never came, so after a brief stop at Brewarrina to see how a fish ladder lets migrating fish get upstream past a weir, we arrived in Bourke to spend a couple of days.
Wide open spaces 