Lightning Ridge

Lightning Ridge produces black opal, the rarest and most valuable kind, and almost everything in the town relates to it: shafts and mullock heaps surround the settlement, dugout homes are cut into the ground, and the population fluctuates with the seasons and the finds. Visitors navigate by the Car Door Tours, four self-guided routes marked by painted car doors nailed up at junctions, which lead to lookouts, eccentric owner-built structures like the Amigo's Castle and the Astronomer's Monument, and working claims. Underground mine tours run daily, the Australian Opal Centre holds fossils and opal displays, and the artesian bore bath on the town's edge is free and open around the clock.

What you actually see

• The Car Door Tours - self-guided routes marked by painted car doors.
• The opal mines - underground tours through working and historic claims.
• The bore bath - free artesian hot pool open day and night.
• The eccentric buildings - owner-built castles and monuments in the scrub.

When to go

April to September; summer temperatures regularly pass forty degrees and mining slows. Winter nights are cold but days are perfect. The town is quieter in the hot months, with some businesses closing.

Honest expectations

The landscape is scarred by mining and looks it. Old shafts are a genuine hazard and wandering off marked routes is dangerous. Opal buying requires care, since quality and treatment vary widely. Services are limited and the town is a long way from anywhere.

Nearby

Walgett lies south; the Queensland border and Hebel are north.