May 1-6 the journey back to a different reality

Coopers cottage

 We left quirky Lightning Ridge with promises to return. It’s our kind of place – no expectations, anything goes, be whoever you are. 

Takhi, or Przewalski's horses, are today classified as endangered in the wild, but were once extinct as a result of human interference. Tarangoo Zoo is part of a protection and reintroduction program. Beautiful spirited horses.

The trip back home was travelled on a bit of a down note after the exciting weeks we had just spent. We did stop in to visit the Dubbo Plains Zoo but apart from that it was just quiet driving as we each reflected over what we had seen and experienced and started to contemplate our next adventure to the Arctic Circle. Wonderful extremes!  We lift off in barely 2 month to the land of volcanoes, geysers, hot springs and lava fields. A land cut through with massive glaciers and one that bridges two tectonic plates which are slowly drifting apart. Also the land where the first assembly of the Alþingi was convened at Þingvellir becoming the earliest version of a formalized parliamentary system of the first parliament in Europe. There and then Greenland - either way it’s all about Vikings, frozen mountains and icy seas.

April 22 to April 30 Lightning Ridge, opals and fossils

We were in Lightning Ridge with a small team of experts from the Australian Opal Centre (AOC) and University of New England searching for fossils from the Cretaceous, a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago. The fossils we were searching for were those that had been opalised.  This dig is an annual science venture for the AOC and Australian Geographic Society (our Lake Mungo Conservation expedition earlier in the month had also been Australian Geographic based).  Before I talk about that amazing time at Lightning Ridge, I want to tell you a smidgen about opal - because I’m a rock person! It is considered Australia’s national gemstone and is found in every colour of the rainbow. While opal is found in other countries such as Brazil, Mexico and the US, Australia produces 95% of the world's precious opal and Lightning Ridge produces the most valuable, and is the world’s major source of, black opal. 

For those of you interested, opal is a non-crystalline form of mineral silica and related to the more common crystalline mineral silica such as quartz and agate. It comes in two forms – ‘common’ which can be grey, black, cream, amber-coloured and white; and ‘precious’ which has the glorious fire we all associate with opal. That brilliant colour is created by microscopic regularly-arranged spheres of silica which diffract light shone on or through it much like a prism - or that's have I understand it. Opalised fossils occur when the material of biological structures - bone, tooth, shell, plant, etc, has been replaced by opal. In some cases, opal forms in voids within those structures or perhaps, as with wood and clay, within shrinkage cracks. 

It's worth having a look at this video to set the scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWWyFEygvFQ

Opalised fossils at Lightning Ridge are about 100 million years old and date back to a time when central Australia was covered by a broad, shallow sea, the Eromanga Sea, the ancient dry bed of which we travelled across last year. The sea and land teemed with myriad life forms including dinosaurs and Lightning Ridge was heavily forested with conifers which towering over ferns, fungi, lichens, liverworts etc (I can almost picture it!). It seems that the animals inhabiting the area around Lightning Ridge then were unique even among Australian species, which means that any bones we found could conceivably have been from new and unnamed species – pretty heady stuff!  These precious opalised fossils we were hunting provide a window onto deep time, Australia’s ancient past and many aspects of earth history. Whatever precious shards of time we unearthed were destined for the collection at the AOC, the world’s largest and most diverse collection of rare opalised fossils (and callooh callay these were labelled with the discoverer’s name).

Lindsay and I were 2 out of 17 diggers. When I say diggers, the hard digging work had been done by miners already but we spent many days sorting through the tailings from a number of opal mines. Six people had been on the dig a few times before but most of us were newbies.  Our guides were an impressive group - a regular at the dig was a palaeontologist and dinosaur specialist from University of New England who has excavated and studied dinosaurs around the world; an amazing woman who grew up in Lightning Ridge and has a lifetime’s experience finding opals and opalised fossils; a PhD and a Masters student studying dinosaurs; and leading us all was Jenni Brammall a vertebrate palaeontologist and gemmologist among many other things who is the CEO of the Australian Opal Centre.  She was a wealth of knowledge and an absolute delight to work with. 

First day on our fossil ‘dig’ was orientation and getting our eye in so we would be able to recognise opal particularly the more difficult non-precious, common opal called potch in which most fossils would be found on this 'dig'. This doesn’t have the fire of precious opal but both potch and precious opal are fossil-bearing but when found the precious opal is usually snaffle by the miners - of course, it is their raison d'etre. Fantastic fun. We started with the tailings from a couple of opal mines and found quite a few interesting things - turtle shell, tiny bones, plant matter, yabby buttons, wee pine cones, molluscs. I found a tiny pinecone and a gastropod mollusc! I nearly fell over with surprise. And Lindsay found 2 bivalves (freshwater mussels). Brilliant day finished off with drinks and quite delicious nibbles looking over the black plains as the sun set. The next day we were heading out into the field.

We each got a box of yummy nibbles sufficient for two! 

The next morning we spent a morning with Butch (see video below) at his mining lease somewhere out of Lightning Ridge. He is a very charming and generous man and we learnt quite a lot listening to him.  

Follow the link below to get a better understanding of how the opal miners and palaeontologists of Lightning Ridge work together to ensure Lightning Ridge’s iconic opalised fossils are protected. 

https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2021/04/saving-the-rainbow-bones-film/

After lunch we drove across the black soil plains of Lake Coocoran and went specking AKA crawling around looking for tiny fragments of opal/fossil. We were still on the hunt for opalised fossils - and joy oh joy, finding them! Much of the time we spent in the field was on the ground on our knees or reclining on the stones and rocks. It was awesome – but somewhat stressful on back and knees. On the way back to town we detoured to visit a ‘wash out’ where the material brought up from the mines is put through an 'agitator' (modified cement mixer affair) and washed. We helped out for an hour.  It's slow and laborious process but rewarding sufficient to keep people like John anchored to Lightning Ridge. And we did go down one mine.

That night we had a fascinating lecture given by Dr Phil Bell, dinosaur specialist at the University of New England and who is involved in dinosaur research around the world.  In fact, as well as visiting mines, talking to miners and doing field work we were treated to erudite lectures almost daily. We were told opal’s own story:  its life cycle from volcanoes, to inland sea and rich vistas of ancient flora and fauna, how it is found, etc right on to its uses as a semi-precious gemstone as jewellery and collectors’ items – and critically as a ‘highlight’ of precious fossils.  For nerdy me the lectures were wonderful.

One day we were treated to a rare sight, a fossil neck vertebra from a Sauropod – these are those big beasts which grew up to 30-40 metres long with long necks and tails (and no they don’t have a brain in their tail!).  The location where this was discovered is absolutely secret for a range of reasons not least of which is to protect the miner but also to protect the site from sightseers etc. Sorry I can’t show you photos of that amazing piece of prehistory, but the illustration in the book above will give you a bit of an idea of the shape of the beast. It certainly excited us seeing this fragment if a time long long gone.  That afternoon having seen and contemplated this breathtaking fragment from such an ancient and huge beast which I might ass hadn’t seen the light of day for 100 million years, we returned to rock sifting with a heightened sense of purpose and particularly so because the rock fragments we were searching through came from that same site. We found many fragments of bone they suspect were from that same sauropod. As an aside and in a lovely twist of fate, I’m finding lots of opalised plant fossils. Not as sexy as the big beastie bits but I’m happy - it all boils down to no plants, no insects, no etc etc.

All week it was go go go non-stop from first up in the morning till after dark when we fell into bed only to be up and at it first thing in the morning. Friday was no different. We headed out to ‘The Grawin’ for more fossicking and look see. 

The red arrow points to my favourite, a translucent crystal quartz jellybean.
You can see the light shining through it. Beautiful.

On the way we travelled through a wee village of Cumborah where we visited what is called the Cumborah gravel pit which is quite extensive. This undulating plain of colourful stones, conglomerate beds of river gravel and sand, are quite old. I don’t know just how old but fossil leaf dating to the Tertiary age (60- 40 million years ago) have been found here. I had just a wonderful time finding jasper, crystal and smoky quartz, agates, a possible torpaz, fossilised wood and other colourful pebbles – it was like a landscape of glowing jellybeans. And for my efforts I got stuck by a Hudson Pear - a nasty prickly weed that has invaded the region. Extraction of the prickles is with pliers, I kid you not.

But to The Grawin. This ‘spot’ is about 70 km from Lightning Ridge and encompasses Grawin, Glengarry and Sheepyards; we visited them all albeit briefly in some cases. It is quite unique and actually hard to describe but what you see is pretty frontier-style living. The 'residents' are there for the opal - and freedom; it’s a community of very colourful characters.  And they are not keen on photographs. There are three quirky pubs in the district - the Glengarry Hilton, The Club in the Scrub (which we visited a few years ago) and the Sheepyard Inn where we had lunch. 

On the road to the pub we crossed paths with a car load of people from the Outback Opal Hunters (TV series) including one of the Cooke brothers.  The whole area is populated with marvelous character - and odd pieces of 'junk'! 

Scattered and piled everywhere through the opal fields were old cars, trucks, pieces of old machinery. Nothing is thrown away. Over the decades valuable bits and pieces have been scavenged from these wrecks to drive a machine, a pump, a hoist, etc. The miners had to be very inventive.  Not so long ago there was a move to clean up the place but fortunately sense prevailed and these rusting pieces of 'scrub art' have been left just as they are as an important part of the local history 

Our last day we were starting to run out of steam physically but perked up quickly when I found a Plesiosaurus tooth! And Lindsay found a piece of turtle shell.   

On the last day, one of the miners whose lease we had visited presented Jenni with a tray of opalised fossils for the AOC. A generous gift! there were yabby buttons, gastopods, pinecones, bivalves and even shark teeth.

The day culminated with a farewell dinner in one of the surprisingly numerous local restaurants. And so the dig finished - at least our part in it, however I suspect we will venture back some time. It was a wonderful and quite exciting experience, one which had us completely engaged for a week. 

For those amateur palaeontologists among you here’s an abbreviated list of what our group of amateur diggers found transformed into opal, wholly or partially: 

Bivalve shells (loads), a handful of tiny pine cones and stems, gazillions of bone fragments, seeds, my one gastropod, turtle shell and vertebrae fragments, crocodilian vertebra and scute (scales), 5 Plesiosaurus teeth and 7 yabby buttons (these are gastroliths that develop internally as the crays reabsorb minerals from their shells when they go into molt; the minerals are stored to use to rebuild their next shell). We were all very happy with our stash.

April 12-21 travelling between expeditions

We ended our Mungo journey with a wander alongside the river at Wentworth, NSW where the Darling and Murray rivers meet. This is all part of an ancient landscape of upheaval and quiet subsidence - or is that newness and adaptation. Quite a magnificent spot where you can see the waters of the two mighty rivers slowly mingle – they are different colours (lots of mud in the Darling) so you can see the distance it takes for them to properly merge – on the surface at least. 

I added this photo for no other reason than I love the structure of this plant I found growing by the river.

This sojourn so far has been a fascinating journey through time, across mixed heritages, cultures and geography and had me thinking about our relevance, about the almost mindless churning of the ‘days of our lives’ which seem irrelevant against the ancient backdrop we had been exploring. Then it was back to earth! And of course joy oh joy that meant preparing for our next expedition – Lightning Ridge and searching for opalised fossils.  Preparation of course meant the usual – washing, shopping to stock the fridge as we had left home with a fairly empty freezer (the reason? we were leaving our van parked unattended for 5 nights and if there had been a power failure in our absence – well I’ll leave the possible consequences to your imagination), and a heap of cooking. 

Once back on the road, we stuck to backroads as is our preferred travelling style. We were traveling through relatively settled farming/cropping areas of central NSW so the roads were OK – or so we had hoped. But no! they were pretty rough actually, rougher in fact than some of the dirt roads we’d driven last year. In one area in the vicinity of Griffith tall columns and dense clouds of smoke billowed skywards to our right and left. No cause for alarm – unless like us you are concerned about atmospheric issues! Sacre bleu. The old practice of burning stubble survives out here it seems. Not entirely sure what the origin of the ‘stubble’ was; could have been chickpeas, sorghum, or perhaps even cotton.

En route between expeditions we drove through fields of, and passed trucks piled high with great reels, of cotton and were quite keen to see the cotton plants up close so we stopped and got out to inspect.  The seed buds, popping with cotton, are quite beautiful. The last time we had been this close to cotton growing was on a self-drive through Portugal in 2004.  I know we all scoff at the growing of cotton – and other crops that use water and other pursuits that eat up and down into our land but don’t forget we have to feed the hungry beast called our economy, fuel our GDP. Fine when you live in the city with a healthy/comfortable job helping to keep the wheels of our moderate wealth churning but that wealth, like milk, comes from somewhere. And yes I know there are more sustainable ways of cropping but watch ABC Landline to see what is happening in the rest of the big chunk of land we call home. So stepping down from my soap box , sorry ……  

You might like to know that cotton, a member of the Mallow (Malvaceae) family, is related to hibiscus of which Australia has 150 native species. One, Gossypium austral, is commonly called Native Cotton but has not been bred-up to produce commercial quantities of cotton for a demanding market. Incidentally Australian cotton has the highest yields in the world, it is a plant well adapted to our climate. Perhaps we should look at …… NO I’m going there but it’s interesting to contemplate our many native species and what and how we should be using them. So back to the purpose of this story. 

Three days later we arrived in Goondiwindi to spend a few days with friends who were there to help me celebrate having reached three-quarters of century. Never thought I’d get so old but thank goodness I have! That was a delightful time, a talk and food fest with delightful friends dating back to our Caloundra days (not going there!). We started the celebrations with totally loaded paella for lunch which we cooked while sipping French champagne. For dinner we had a delicious entree of gozleme followed with slow cooked goat curry and cake! Goondiwindi you ask? Well, it was the halfway point between where they live and where we were heading, Lightning Ridge.  Goondiwindi is lovely spot, but we weren’t there for sightseeing, it was all about catching up on lost time.  And we did, big time! It was wonderful.

People have asked whether we encountered any flooding on our travels – we did but not sufficient to box us in. We were diverted along our way to Lightning Ridge with a 300 km detour which meant we travelled dodgy dirt roads after dark, but we made it to Lightning Ridge in one piece albeit well after dark.  So what of the next 10 days?  I am still unpacking all that, chewing over and trying to digest a mountain of new, interesting and exciting experiences and information.

April 9 - heading to Lake Mungo the long way around

[Apologies that the next two posts are out of sequence - a mere hiccup in time!]

Off to Lake Mungo today - after another huge breakfast. Being Saturday the kitchen didn’t open till 8am so they packed us a box-breakfast. It was humongous - bacon and egg wrap, yogurt, fruit salad. Enough for two in each 'box'. We eventually rolled out to the vans (two 11-seater minibuses) for a 7:45 start heading for the Murray River and King Billabong Park. I have never really experienced the Murray River quite like this. We wandered alongside a large billabong - the Ducksfoot Lagoon which was so tranquil yet teeming with life. 

This sweet little thing is one of the smallest ferns, an Azollo fern.

As well as this wee fern we found many different species of plants, some of which were flowering, including a pretty mauve eremophila and a number of chenopods, one of my favourite plant families (sorry I'm strapped for plant names this trip as I forgot to pack my plant books. Not happy Jan!). 

Along the path we came across an Eastern Longneck turtle, diam ~30cm.

We were concerned it was stranded or injured so stood around quietly watching for signs that it was OK. Eventually it laboriously turned round and headed back in the direction of the river - we breathed a sigh of relief. But not far from this spot I saw broken eggs scattered under a Tangled Lignum – turtle eggs! Something had dug into the nest and had enjoyed a big feast. 

We had morning tea by this tranquil water – always cake and biscuits plus fruit but then we were back on the road heading for the Australian Inland Botanical gardens, the first semi-arid gardens established in the Southern Hemisphere. 

It was quite delightful. We wander through a section devoted to remnant salt-tolerant plants, another section crowded with desert plants including eremophila and a number of chenopod species (Mairenea sp and Copper Burr in the pix above), and everywhere mallee and acacia. One really eye-catching tree was the red-capped wattle, Eucalyptus erythrocorys. Huge bright yellow flowers that burst out of large woody buds topped with bright red caps (you can see a few red caps in one of the pix). 

On the left a 2500 year old Eucalytus oleosa

Many of our natives have adapted to, and some in fact require, fire to release their seeds. Some require the smoke and ash chemicals washed into the soil by rain to start their regeneration. One beautifully adapted species is the Eucalyptus oleosa (Red Mallee seen above) which regenerates new shoots after fire. The one above which while its branches are around 700 years old, its lignotuber (massive root) is 2500 years old. Beside the pix of this ancient tree is an image of what the roots of these Mallee look like - they are huge but the trees they support are often not very tall relative to their root size.

Then it was time to head northeast so we would reach Lake Mungo in time for happy hour - priorities! On the way we stopped and wandered along the dry creek bed of Willandra Creek, once  part of the Lachlan River system which fed the Willandra Lakes system; Lake Mungo is the terminal lake of that system. Although the creek is dry now there is a twisting line of trees where the creek occasionally 'flows' presumably after rain sufficient to keep the mallees alive. 

Alongside that dry creek bed we found evidence of human habitation – fire stones, stone cutting tools. It’s hard to comprehend that they had lain there for 10s of thousands of years occasionally brought to the surface by wind and rain. Bottom left is a rock from which smaller cutting tools had been struck from. On the bottom right are fire stones.

Of particular interest to me was evidence in the baked sediments and rocks from eroded fireplaces and earth ovens of the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field at the time those fires were used. They indicated that the Earth's axis rotated up to 120 degrees from its ‘normal’ (current) position around 30,000 years ago and then gradually returned again over thousands of years. Other evidence of this phenomenon has has been found in samples taken from sediments in Norway and France of a similar age. As a matter of interest (to some of you!) the Earth’s axis flips every ‘so often’ and this perhaps gives some time frame. I love the seeming timelessness of, and the changes in, our home planet – we live in a vast and fascinating world.  But moving on ........

We were driving into threatening slatey clouds which delivered their load! A huge rainstorm which belted down on the roof of the vans turned the dirt road into a quagmire - an interesting challenge for our two guide/drivers, Martin and Tim. The sky was slashed through with a double rainbow - quite spectacular. 

We made it to the Mungo Lodge without mishap and settled into quite luxurious accommodation (by our standards) with spectacular desert vistas. Of course as soon as we had dumped our bags we headed to the bar for drinks before sitting down to an absolutely delicious dinner of rack of lamb decorated with salt bush. We’d walked over 8 Km that day so we slept well which was a good thing because we were being picked up at 7am to launch into the next day’s explorations!

April 10-11 ancient Lake Mungo in the Willandra Lakes World Heritage area

By way of a brief introduction to this World Heritage area, the region is part of the Murray-Darling Basin Depression, a great plain of salt and sand covering 1 million square Km (well over 10% of the Australian continent). About 400,000 years ago during a dry windy time, the Willandra Creek, which once fed the creek, was cut off by sand and as a consequence the Willandra Lakes were formed. Over millennia the lakes have fluctuated from being completely dry to flooded before they finally drying up 10,000 years ago. Lake Mungo is supposedly the terminal lake of the system but perhaps that’s a matter of definition. Most of the Lake Mungo National Park is dry lakebed with an ancient, eroded dune on its eastern shoreline. In the dry times the wind from the west blew sand, pebbles and clay from the lakebed of Mungo creating a crescent-shaped dune of the east side – a ‘lunette’ which has been constantly impacted by the wind so that the whole complex has slowly shifted further east. This lunette is often called the ‘Wall of China’ (there’s a story attached to that of course). 

As those winds have progressively eroded the surface of the lunette the remains of humans, animals and human occupation have been exposed. And that brought world attention to the region 40 odd years ago. It was declared a protected national park in 1979 when it was recognised that it is a critically important site for ancient Australian history and indeed the history of human occupation. It is part of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage area and home to significant archaeological finds that dated Aboriginal occupation in the region back over 42,000 years ago. It is the traditional meeting place of the Muthi Muthi, Nyiampaar and Barkinji Aboriginal people. 

Once you could wander over the dunes but that is now restricted. When we were there, further restrictions were in place as the traditional people prepared for the return and reburial of Mungo Lady and Mungo Man. A cloud of secrecy surrounds a large area for obvious reasons. 

We also explored the lakebed where we could and joined an official tour of the lunette which was worth the walk up and over the dunes to ponder the effects of time and changing weather patterns on the land; there is evidence of considerable erosion over time but also from the heavy rains we had had a couple of days earlier  It was here that we found artefacts such as the tooth of a Northern Hairy-nosed wombat which no longer exists in this region (we saw a skeleton of this animal in the excellent Visitors’ Centre).  Also emerging out of the dunes are calcified tree stumps, the remains of trees that once ringed the lake.  We also stumbled upon a tiny Painted Dragon heading safety in the bushes.

It is a region rich in archaeological and palaeontological wonders. In 2003, footprints of people from the region were discovered in the dry claypan of the Willandra lakes region. Archaeologists have estimated them to be 20,000 years old. It was an amazing find as they are the only Pleistocene human footprints yet found in Australia and the most numerous found in the world to date. Casts taken at the site have been reproduced and are displayed in the same configuration at the Visitors’ Centre.

The entice area provides so many places to explore. At one site, we found freshwater mussel shells amongst other evidence of human occupation. Bone and shell middens date back to when this was a great lake and provide some of the oldest evidence of modern human habitation in the world.

It was a rare and privileged journey into a rather unique part of the world. An intriguing ancient place which has looked on as some world-shattering discoveries of human history have gradually come to light. And the story continues to unfold as natural forces erode the sands and clays. 

We were there looking for wildlife as well as exploring the heritage aspects of the place. So we often stopped and got out to explore. At one spot we spent a couple of hours watching and photographing a flock of gorgeous pink cockatoos (Major Mitchell’s) as well as other parrots. Quite spectacular. And of course yours truly was always on the lookout for plants and non-avian wildlife as well.

Come dawn or dusk there was wildlife and glorious panoramas to in all directions.