Found at the former settlement of Nettleton near Lightning Ridge in north-west NSW, this brass seal was used at the local post office from 1912 when the area was bustling with opal miners and their families. As well as the post office, Nettleton once boasted a school, boarding house, and shops selling flour and tea, […]
It’s a familiar tale in the outback. A city slicker, rolling into a mining town with dreams of striking it rich, only to be met with the brutal reality of life in the desert. Brian Maloney’s cartoon satirically depicts what Lightning Ridge locals refer to as ‘Going Gougin’,’ reminding us that opal mining isn’t for […]
When Madeleine Lenz (1917-2009) first visited Lightning Ridge in the 1950s, it was a rough, remote outpost with just 64 residents. The settlement had no town water, power or police—just a pub, a small store, and dirt roads riddled with potholes. The nearest doctor was fifty miles away at Walgett. Despite its harsh conditions, Madeleine […]
Imagine if your monthly grocery shopping took nearly a week! In the colony’s early years, settler women and their children living on remote properties often had to travel a few days by buggy on dirt tracks to get to the nearest township for supplies. Overnight stays at inns and hotels were common, and a good […]
Used at the Lightning Ridge opal fields on Yuwaalaraay Country, this handmade mining trolley is testament to the back breaking work and inventive spirit the manual mining era is remembered for. Its wooden parts were made using local, termite-resistant white cypress pine, held together using butt and lap joints, nails and wire. The wheels were […]
Victorian goldminer Charles Waterhouse Nettleton (1862-1946) arrived on Mt Browne’s Albert gold fields west of Milparinka in New South Wales sometime before it closed down in 1893. He was a solitary man, a prospector, so wandered southeast to White Cliffs, the home of milky opal, and his new interest. But gold was in his blood […]
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