Trip To Lightening Ridge

Over Easter, the Oliver clan went up to visit Carlene's brother at Lightening Ridge. We drove in a "bus" for 15 hours (one way) only to enjoy the festivities for 2 days.

I had to laugh at the awesome-ness of such a long trip. These are my 5 highlights.

#1 - Running out of fuel - this always makes a better adventure for long road trips - and for good stories at the end...Plus it gave us a break from riding in the bus, and we found a dead carcass - oooh so exciting...a myriad of flies, and some pooh! yes a truly successful road stop to say the least - we were delighted with "Ray" our heroic saviour...who drove Ross to get more fuel, and even brought him back - hooray - we should have given him a cookie - but we didn't.


#2 - Experiencing my first Goat and Bin (as in Garbage) races... yes it's true - hundreds gathered around to watch goats race in carts. The best part was it was not safe what-so-ever, and the they kept careening into the onlookers bound to get somebody hurt! What??? The orange tape won't save you from being run over?



Almost as good was watching the children push garbage bins (almost as big as they are) in a race for what? .... The glory of winning. Hooray! Unfortunately there were a few tears shed, when one girls bin went wildly out of control, and she wound up in last place...sorry darlin'!


#3 - Opal Mining....This was unbelievable. Leigh's Uncle Rodney has been running a caravan park, but is letting that go to focus more specifically on Opal mining. He owns a few mining claims already, and we got to visit one. I didn't go down (it's a 70 ft hole in the ground) Scary -but most of the others did. Instead I spent time looking for my own opals, and surprised most people with a pretty good find! It was great fun!







#4 - the Hot Pools - every night before bed, we drove down to the Artesian hot springs to soak in the warm pools. It was so nice and relaxing and a good way of winding down at the end of a "not really" hectic day. It was really great for my skin too!
#5 - Networking computers - seriously, I know this sounds really lame - but how awesome is it that we can be on our computer, and Sarah can come onto hers and connect to ours while we were driving....They were able to watch shows on our computer because of that...so really...For #5, I could have commented on Carlene's amazing raspberry slice, seeing Leigh's grandpa's cabin, or I could have talked about being able to meet more of Leigh's family... hmmm....I could have commented on the amazing hospitality and generousity of Leigh's uncle (Rodney)... but I would have to write 8 pages of all that he did for us, and I certainly don't have the time for that! I could show you the ring he gave me tho...so pretty.



Also, I'm adding a few "art" photos to give you a feel of the area!