White Cliffs. What can you say. It’s quirky, different, moonscapeish, outrageous, thrilling, and most of it is underground – in fact it’s another world! We loved it all.
We were in White Cliffs on 22/23/24 April 2021
Kerry’s snippets in fuchsia
Getting There
Broken Hill > Wilcannia (196km) > White Cliffs (93km) ~ 289kms
History
Australia has been inhabited by the Aboriginal people for some 40,000 years. Lake Mungo to the south of Wilcannia and Mutawintji to the north-west give evidence of long occupation. The Central Darling area around Wilcannia/White Cliffs area was held by the Barkindji tribe (from barka meaning a river). Many of the Aboriginal people living in the area today belong to the Barkindji tribe.
The local First Nations people had been moving through the White Cliffs area for around 40,000 years prior to the arrival of the British. However, due to the heat and unpleasantness of the desert they never settled in White Cliffs permanently, only visiting the area as they travelled to and from the Darling River.
White Cliffs was Australia’s first viable commercial opal field and was discovered in 1884 by a couple of stock-hands, kangaroo shooting during the drought, on Moomba Station, to protect the remaining grass for the sheep. The roo shooters sent a sample of the colourful rocks they discovered, to be analysed in Adelaide by geologist Tullie Wollaston. Wollaston immediately set off to meet the shooters and visit the area where the rocks were found. Upon his arrival he offered the shooters 140 pounds for the first sample, which they eagerly accepted not knowing Wollaston was ready to offer even more.
In March 1890 the first opal mining lease was taken out in the area, and Wollaston began promoting and supplying White Cliff’s opals in Europe and America.
In that same year, 1890, a settlement emerged of miners working in the area. It was aptly named White Cliffs derived from the surrounding countryside of white underlying sandstone outcrops along the escarpments of the hills. Following the miners, William Johnstone arrived in the settlement and established the first general store and hotel.
But the real growth of the town did not occur until 1893 when the word spread about lucrative finds and an influx or miners were drawn to the area. The increase in population led to the development of the town’s infrastructure. A number of old buildings and relics of the town’s colourful past still remain including the Post Office, the old Police Station and the old church.
However, for the most part building materials were scarce and expensive. Consequently, by 1894 many miners chose to live underground converting their old shafts into homes. With the hills being solid sandstone rather than earth. the dugouts were in no danger of collapsing and the temperature was consistently cooler than the outside unbearable summer heat.
Still today a number of White Cliff’s residents live in around 140 beautiful underground homes, some of which can be visited and even stayed at overnight. The first historic dugouts can also be viewed from the Pioneer Cemetery.
In 1902 White Cliff peaked with opals worth as much as £140,000 extracted from the mines around the town, and its population rising to around 5,000 in the winter months. But, from 1903 and over the next 10 years, as the richer areas of the fields were mined out and the conditions became too harsh, the town began a slow decline.
World War One dealt a final blow to the town as in 1915 the miners were called to fight the Germans – the biggest buyers and dealers of opal at that time. The population of the town was reduced to an estimated 30 people and trade was halted.
As a result, the White Cliffs opal fields never really recovered and the town was reduced to the small settlement it is today. The permanent population remains 225 rising to about 500 in winter when today’s miners from the south seeking the remaining gems.
Today White Cliffs is a single purpose town. Apart from its minor function as a service centre for the surrounding properties, it remains a town driven by opals. Plus, now, tourists.
Day 1 – 22 April – drive to White Cliffs
Lovely day after a crisp night.
So we travelled back to Wilcannia on the same road we had taken a week earlier going to Broken Hill. It’s a good road and the landscape is flat, but in towns we do catch an interesting building or so. The road up to White Cliffs is sealed all the way and is in good condition. It does not have line markings and has one 1-lane bridge. Such a dead flat landscape all around us. A shame to see so many dead kangaroos on the side of the roads out here.
We quickly set up in the only van park in town. It has lots of space but hammering the pegs into the ground was not fun. The facilities are what you might expect in a small mining town – all adequate and clean.
We had a quick look around at the National Parks office, but there were no staff there. Just information about nearby Parks, which we had a good look at. Then we went across the road to the shop, which also doubles as a tourist information office. The helpful woman there filled us in on the options and told us there was a mine tour starting at 3 at Red Earth Opal. It was then quarter to. So we followed the signs and joined the tour. There were about 20 people already there and ready to go. Cost is $25 per person.And what a fabulous tour it was. Graham, the miner who owns Red Earth Opals, and a couple of mine leases was incredibly knowledgeable with lots of interesting background information and a great sense of humour.
It was a brilliant tour – Graham was also incredible funny. We were in stitches at times. We spent about 20 minutes with Graham explaining all about opal mining and the history of White Cliffs. His focus has been on the extremely rare pineapple opals shaped uncannily like the tops of the fruit. These precious finds can fetch up to $US500,000 ($A700,000) in the premier US market and White Cliffs is the only place on the planet where pineapple opals occur. And Graham has found a lucrative patch in his claim. Lucky him.
We then drove the short distance to his mine where he gave us all a hard hat. He led us down into the mine – thankfully we did not have to go down the shaft in the bucket pictured below – and explained his systems for removing the spoil and to carefully dig out an area for opals.
He showed us the little seams of opals, which he then interprets and starts the serious hunt for the right stones.
There are shafts and tunnels in all different directions – could easily get lost. And he has found old bottles and other stuff that the first miners left down under. He also found some old newspapers dating to the late 1800s.
He took us to an area he was working and very confident of finding another pineapple or two. He used his digger to carefully hack out some spoil and then invited people to take a screwdriver and go in and careful explore a band width of about 200mm he had excavated. Two children volunteered, but did not find anything.
This can be seen in the video, click here
It was a brilliant tour – we finished at 5:30. We told the people next to us at the van park about how good the tour was, and they did it the next day. At the end Graham helped them select an area for some digging – the land surface is open to anyone to fossick, but everything underground must be a formal claim. They were going back to do more fossicking the next day. Hope they got something.
That night we had dinner at the pub.
Day 2 – 23 April – White Cliffs
Lovely day after a crisp night (again).
For my morning walk, I did the tourist trail right around the opal fields, then around Turleys Hill. There are holes and dirt mounds everywhere – and old cars, trucks and buses. Junk everywhere. But it’s an amazing place.
At 11:00 we did the tour of the underground home – sometimes called the “white house” as all the walls are rendered and painted white. It’s $10 per person. The house is built in an abandoned opal mine, which is reputed to have yielded millions of dollars worth of colour, including the prized white opal. But the current owner, Cree Marshall is confident there is absolutely none left.
For the last 28 years, she has been creating and building this wonderful home. As well she has been decorating it and progressing her art style.
We really enjoyed the tour, especially the art work throughout the home. It is very spacious, and there is always the feeling of a gently flow of air with the various tunnels and holes interlinked to let the air flow.
We were not allowed to take pictures of the home, but you can read more on the home and its decoration here. Interesting way to live. Cree told us that the temperature inside never varies from 20 – 26 degrees, no matter if its 0 or 50 outside. There are lots of light wells (old mine shafts) which have been covered in glass with ventilation holes to help air circulation…. The ceiling heights in most parts of the house were quite high – only low in one area that they dug out to make extra space.
Day 3 – 24 April – around White Cliffs
Lovely day after a crisp night (again).
After my morning walk, we drove around the town following the tourist trail. It really is a fascinating place. We stopped and had a little dig at a couple of places but we quickly realised it was hopeless. We were probably digging up some spoil from a mine which had already been checked by a proper miner.
We went to look at the stubby house and a lovely house – maybe the only above ground house that looks good. I’m pretty sure the house in the 2nd photo was the Town Hall back in the day, but its a bit hard to tell on the town map.
We then went to see the White Cliffs Solar Power Station. Can you believe that this was the World’s first solar commercial power station? In little old White Cliffs. It operated on solar thermal energy from 1983 to 1994, until the power lines came through. An array of 14 x 5m dishes concentrated the sun’s energy into thermal absorbers producing superheated steam. This was fed to an engine and thence the batteries.
In 2005 the power station was decommissioned. Thanks to the spirit of the towns folk, the station has been preserved and a willing group of volunteers work hard to protect it, and even restore parts. It cannot really have a role in mainstream energy generation as the technology is now so old. But what a little treasure to find in such a remote little town.
Just along from our solar discovery is the golf course. The tees are on small mats – coloured green, of course but there is no indication where on earth the “green” is. At last we did find one.
Then we went over to the annual gymkhana, which was on that day – the rodeo was on the next day but we would miss that. Still the gymkhana was pretty exciting, especially as we had never experienced such an event. It was amazing to see the way some horses and riders act as a single unit as they race to a target and round it is a single movement. Wonderful skills. And their steak and sausage sandwiches were pretty good too.
Much of this is shown on the video, click here
Finally we went to look at a little church I had seen on my walk. Very quaint.
To look at photos from this post, click here
To look at photos from this post, click here