A very fast-paced day. We started with two mine tours; the first the "walk in mine" kept around to show tourists like us without any climbing of ladders. Later in the morning we got to ride the "man-lift" down 65 feet into our hosts actual working mine.

Between the mine tours we had a mind bending tour of Chambers of the Black Hand, an experience you could not guess from the name. It is a myriad of tunnels decorated with carvings of all kinds of subjects. The carvings were done by an unsuccessful Pommie opal miner who decided to try his hand at something other than mining. The crazy part (or at least one of them) of this story is that all the carvings were done with a butter knife and a dinner fork.

The bulk of the day was dedicated to touring the bush pubs which are located in an area called GlenGarry or Garwin about 100km NNW from Lightning Ridge

Originally the pubs were informal gathering places for local miners, then turned into unlicensed (and hence illegal) pubs but are now fully legit with licenses.

However the acquisition of liquor licenses has not changed the idiosyncratic nature of these establishments. There are 3 of them named:

  • Club in the Scrub

  • Sheep Yard Inn

  • Glengarry Hilton

We completed the day with a visit to the famous Bore Baths (fed with hot water from an artesian bore, hence the name) and then dinner and beers at the LRDBC