White Cliffs

I visited the iconic opal mining town of White Cliff in February 2003. At the time, I’d embarked on a six-day circuit of the New South Wales outback with my friend Enda in tow. This is the second of three posts about our Kodak-era adventures.

The road to White Cliff was an adventure in and of itself. Shortly after leaving Wilcannia, the tar seal ended, and the road reverted to graded red dirt. For the next 50km, we slowly weaved around ruts, potholes and through pools of muddy water. More than once, I wondered if we’d soon find ourselves bogged in the middle of the desert. 

Despite a few hair-raising moments we made it safely to White Cliff as the sun neared the horizon. What a sunset! On the edge of town, we climbed a low tailings ridge and stood in awe of the jumbled, iridescent landscape unfolding before us. The image below simply doesn’t do it justice. 

Many White Cliff locals live underground in “dugouts” year-round. It’s the coolest place in the Outback where outdoor temperatures can soar above 40 C for weeks on end. Underground the temperature remains a comfortable 22 C all year round. 

I was keen to experience life underground, so I booked us into PJ's Bed and Breakfast, an underground establishment with five guest rooms. The photo below was ripped from the web as I never took any of my own. Even its address was a novelty: Dugout 72, White Cliffs NSW 2836. This was the first time I’d slept in an underground home, a feat that wasn’t repeated until Garry and I spent two nights underground in Cooper Pedy in 2019. 

Like many homes in this opal mining town, our accommodation was built into the hillside alongside a miner’s active claim. Opal miner Peter Pedler (the P in PJ's) runs the place with his wife, Joanne. Although, much to their surprise, Edna and I rocked up a day ahead of schedule. Hours earlier we’d walked into a dodgy hotel I’d booked in Cobar, thought better of it and kept driving. As luck would have it, our unsuspecting B&B hosts, who’d been on vacation, arrived home minutes before us. 

Edna and I shamelessly played dumb and insisted we’d booked the correct date. Our hosts graciously agreed to accommodate us a day ahead of schedule. They also apologized for only offering a simple pasta meal as they hadn’t restocked their pantry.

After dinner, Peter took us on a tour of the narrow winding shafts in his home’s private opal mine under Turley’s Hill. He showed us a promising seam and let us touch a few of his more recent finds, including several opals that had been polished to perfection.

I’d wanted to visit White Cliff after watching contestants from the TV reality show, The Amazing Race, play golf on its barren nine-hole course. Edna and I simply had to give it a go so our B&B hosts tracked down the local “greenskeeper” the following morning. We hired a set of clubs and balls and set about playing the oddest course I’ve ever encountered. I’m not too proud to admit that we both lost balls. However, I still finished with the best score. 

The golf course was the ultimate outback experience. No grass at all, narrow fairways, lots of saltbush, plenty of out-of-bound zones and a few unique desert hazards including gravel, dry creek beds and burrow holes. To protect your club from damage, you’re given a small mat of artificial turf to carry with you. The local rules allow you to move your ball one club length onto your portable mat for each shot, while the greens are little more than fine rolled gravel, occasionally damped down with oil.

 

White Cliffs is also home to the world’s first commercial solar power station, built in 1980. On the outskirts of town, 14 shiny concave dishes focus the sun’s energy to generate superheated steam for driving electromagnetic turbines. We saw it from a distance as we drove into town, returning the next day for a closer look. It’s easy to forget that solar power was still in its infancy four decades ago. While preparing this post, I learned that the White Cliff station ceased operation in 2005, two years after my visit.

Follow this link for more outback adventures as we explore Broken Hill and the Murray River.

NOTE: 17 November 2024

This evening, I discovered that the golf course I’d seen on The Amazing Race was filmed in Cooper Pedy. I can’t believe it. I’ve been wrong about the White Cliffs course for over twenty years. How lucky were we that this red dirt town inadvertently offered an identical golfing experience!