Earth Moving
Making Do at Lightning Ridge
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 cut from an unsawn branch or sapling, and the axle was repurposed from a prior-used item, with the letters stamped on the front axle clearly suggesting this.
Before rudimentary, and then more sophisticated machines, reshaped opal mining techniques at Lightning Ridge, the opal miners worked alone or in pairs and small groups. Using short-handled picks and shovels, they ‘sunk’ vertical shafts and then gouged narrow horizontal drives or tunnels into the claystone, to locate and follow opal seams.
Various methods were adopted to move the loosened stone from and along the mine’s narrow tunnels and to the shaft for removal, including with small trolleys like this one that carried an ox-hide bucket. Once at the base of the shaft, using a hand-operated windlass, the bucket was winched-up to the top of the shaft where it was emptied onto a mullock heap.
Throughout the era of manual mining Lightning Ridge was far more remote than it is today. Its distance from big towns and ready-made goods shaped the ingenuity and ‘make do’ way of life the town’s mining families adopted. Aside from this trolley and other mining equipment, all manner of essential needs from housing to furniture and clothing were met by turning to a home-designed, repurposed or patched-up solution.
