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!

A very outback adventure

I visited Broken Hill for the first time (and thus far, only time) in February 2003. It had been a lifelong dream to visit this iconic outback mining town. My dream was inspired by a 35mm movie I’d seen at primary school while living in Dunedin—around 1974. I’d have been eight years old at the time.

Once a month the school took delivery of hefty reels of documentaries and teaching films. The projector would be set up in the school library and the windows covered by blackout curtains. Classrooms then took turns watching the latest delivery of celluloid education.

For reasons I may never understand, a film about mining and life in Broken Hill captured my imagination. The town it depicted was simply the most exotic, remote and magical place my young mind could comprehend. Perhaps it stuck with me, simply because it opened my eyes to the wider world around me for the first time.

 
In February 2003 I was suffering from burnout. Following my recent appointment as Asia Pacific (APAC) Regional Director for Text 100, I'd been working insanely long hours and travelling continually for more than nine months. After a rather unpleasant run-in with my CEO, my Regional HR Director and I agreed it would be wise for me to take a few weeks off.

After a week of sitting around home, I booked myself a road trip to Broken Hill, and on to Mildura, before returning to Sydney. The final circuit I mapped out covered more than 2,700km, spread over seven days. Along the way, it ticked off plenty of bucket list destinations including the Parkes Radio Telescope, White Cliffs and the Murray River. 

At the last minute Edna, a close friend, decided to join me on the trip. He’d just split from his long-term partner, and thus, like me needed an emotional circuit breaker. Here's a summary of our itinerary as best I can recall. I’m unsure if we stayed one night or two in Broken Hill, as we dropped one of our scheduled overnight stops on the way there.

DAY	DATE	ITINERARY
1	17 Feb	Blue Mountain, Bathurst, Parkes
2	18 Feb	Nyngan, Cobar, White Cliffs
3	19 Feb	Broken Hill
4	20 Feb	Silverton, Wentworth, Mildura
5	21 Feb	Murray River, Wagga Wagga
6	22 Feb	Canberra
7	23 Feb	Return to Sydney

Our first day on the road started with a morning drive to the Blue Mountains. We stopped at three of the area’s classic sights including Wentworth Falls, The Three Sisters and Govetts Leap, then carried on to Bathurst. We completed the mandatory Panoramic Hill circuit (home to the Bathurst 1000 motor race) before finishing the day in Parkes. Here we visited the 64 m CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope. Enda and I explored exhibits at its visitor centre before finally checking into a local motel for the night. 

The following morning, we headed north towards Nyngan. I was keen to visit this remote town after watching record floods devastate it in April 1990. A wall of water 14 kilometres wide, spread around the town and surrounding countryside making escape impossible. More than 2,500 locals were eventually evacuated using 15 helicopters.

Edna and I toured the local museum inside the town's old railway station. We both learned a great deal about the flood and its soul-destroying aftermath. In a car park outside the natural disaster is dramatically commemorated by a retired RAAF Iroquois helicopter mounted on a two-metre-high pole.

We then continued to Cobar. I’d originally booked a room in the local hotel for the night. However, Edna and I walked into the bar, looked at the locals and the ramshackle décor, and decided to head for White Cliffs, our next overnight stop. However, before leaving town we took a detour to the local meteorological station, arriving in time to help the resident meteorologist launch a daily weather balloon. 

He gave us a superb briefing on his remote outpost's role in forecasting the state’s weather. Sadly, the station was automated in 2016, and the 3:15pm balloon launch we enjoyed is no more. On the way out of town, we stopped briefly at the Fort Bourke Hill Lookout to check out the recently reopened Open Cut Gold Mine. It's hard to believe the soaring price of gold has made these old mines commercially viable again.

As good tourists do, Enda and I stopped several times, literally in the middle of nowhere, to photograph the arrow-straight Barrier Highway disappearing into the horizon. Without a doubt, these were iconic outback photo opportunities for both of us. Even more so considering that Enda comes from Ireland and me from New Zealand, two countries where straight, flat roads are few and far between.

Wilcannia was our next tourist highlight. We stopped to look at its old trestle bridge and catch our first glimpse of the Darling River. Much to our surprise, the river wasn’t flowing. Instead, segregated pools of water filled the river channel. Information panels nearby displayed images of the river in flood with boats docked along its banks. It was hard to believe we were viewing the same scene. However, we finally saw Darling flowing freely as it merged with the mighty Murray River in Wentworth several days later.

From here it was on to White Cliffs and our first encounter with life in the Outback.