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.

Our cup runneth over

This week has been unusually busy socially. As warm weather returns, we’ve been out and about more than ever. We’ve enjoyed creating a few happy memories after a rather emotional few months over winter.

 

Our social week started with a wander through the City of Sydney’s annual street party in Surry Hills. Last Sunday, the council closed Crown Street between Cleveland Street and Foveaux Street. People were out in force enjoying street stalls, Brazilian marching bands (complete with Samba dancers), dog training obstacle courses and plenty of quirky street performers.

Garry and I stopped for a glass of French Chablis and hors d'oeuvres at Mille Vini Wine Bar. We sat at a window bench and spent a delightful hour watching the crowd pass. I can honestly say it's the first time I've ever heard a dance party version of Baby Shark and "Shake It All About", delivered courtesy of a live singer performing on a temporary sound stage outside.

On Tuesday we joined friends for a Melbourne Cup Lunch at Clarie’s Kitchen on Oxford Street. Our group booked a table at this venue and enjoyed a three-course meal. We last did this as a group in 2022. Garry won first and second place in an in-house sweepstake, while I won first place in a second sweepstake. Between us, we took home $150. Not a bad return on investment for the day.

After lunch, our group kicked on to the Riley Hotel for a couple of cocktails before moving on to a hidden speakeasy bar in a laneway off Oxford Street. Shady Pines Saloon proved a hidden gem. Most of us had never heard of the place. We ended up seated at a large table dominated by an impressive, mounted Moose head extending overhead.

Last night we enjoyed an early birthday dinner for Garry at the iconic Bennelong in the Opera House. A few months ago, I discovered that Garry had never dined there so I booked us a table. The restaurant surprised and delighted us with a table seated next to a window on its upper level. We enjoyed uninterrupted views of Sydney Harbour and Harbour Bridge. It was a magical evening, and the food was truly divine.

Finally, I enjoyed an EO event on Thursday evening at the Capella Hotel, a boutique establishment just off Bridge Street in the CBD. I continue to be amazed by the venues that EO finds in Sydney. I’ve experienced so many great venues for the first time since joining the organisation almost three years ago.

We have more dining adventures planned in the week ahead including a business lunch at the Fenwick Hotel in Balmain, and a dinner at Neil Perry’s new restaurant, Songbird, in Double Bay. This year’s silly season is shaping up to be busier than ever.

The Great Buddha of Kamakura

Time for another retrospective post from the Kodak era. This time we’re off to Kamakura, a historic coastal city on the Miura peninsula south of Tokyo. The city is renowned for Kamakura Daibutsu, otherwise known as The Great Buddha of Kamakura, at Kotoku-in temple.

Kamakura is one of Japan's ancient capitals, alongside Kyoto and Nara. It served as the seat of the Kamakura shogunate for almost 150 years from 1185 to 1333. This was also Japan’s first military government. As a result, the city is filled with many ancient and note-worthy temples and shrines.

Kamakura Daibutsu is a large bronze statue of a seated Buddha. It sits on a low-profile stone podium. Including the base, it measures 13.35 metres high and weighs about 93 tonnes. According to temple records, the statue dates from around 1252 and thus was cast at the height of the Kamakura shogunate.

It was created to replace an earlier giant wooden statue destroyed by a storm in 1248. The bronze replacement was originally enclosed in a temple hall. However, this building was swept away by a tsunami in 1498. Since then, the Great Buddha has stood in the open air.

I visited Kamakura and spent the day exploring its many hillside temples and shrines during a business trip to Japan. My company’s Tokyo office was a bit of a problem child at the time. As a result, I made many trips to Japan to support the team, usually staying at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku.

My first business trip to Tokyo was a three-week secondment in August 2001. At the time, I was the Managing Director of our Australian office and was asked to spend time in the office training the executive team on improving their business management skills.

Following this trip, I returned regularly between 2002 and 2005 after becoming Regional Director for Asia Pacific. At the time, we'd lost our local managing director and had an expat in place acting in a temporary capacity. The situation's complexity meant that I stayed often for several weeks and thus regularly found myself with a weekend to fill.

To be brutally honest, I’m not sure exactly when I visited Kamakura. I never dated the photos I took. At a guess, it was sometime in 2002. It takes about 90 minutes to reach the city by train from Shinjuku. Most visitors disembark at Hase Station, then make their way uphill to the Kamakura Daibutsu tracing a popular tourist route past several Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines.

However, I decided to get off the train at Kita Kamakura station. From here I walked down the tree-lined streets of old Kamajura toward Hase Station. Along the way, I passed numerous immaculate shrines, including Engakuji, one of Japan's leading Zen temples, before finally finishing up at Great Buddha. Thanks to regular tourist stops, it took me several hours to complete the walk.  You can see a photo above of the wonderful Zen garden at Engakuji.  It was undergoing a little maintenance the day I visited.

Kenchoji, Kamakura’s oldest Zen temple, was also memorable. I was captivated by the defensive demon statues guarding the steps leading up to Hansōbō, the temple's large Shinto shrine. Known as Tengu, these mythical creatures are similar to goblins. Some of the statues had wings and a beak, a tengu genre known as Karasu-tengu (crow tengu) because of their avarian appearance.

The Great Buddha of Kamakura an impressive sight. As it comes into view beyond the ticket gate its size and scale is immediately clear. You instantly appreciate why it’s designated as a national treasure of Japan and is considered one of the nation’s most famous icons. Where else can you gaze upon a pair of one-metre wide eyes resting in eternal contemplation?

Farewell Rhonda

On Monday we farewelled Rhonda, Garry's mother, with a wonderful service. It was held in the Garden Chapel at Castlebrook Memorial Park Rouse Hill. It rained like crazy the night before.  However, as the service began the weather lifted and we enjoyed dry conditions.

Attendance exceeded everyone's expectations. The chapel seats 120 people. We'd anticipated that maybe 100 people would attend. In the end, almost 200 showed up (or at least that's our best guess as more than 173 people signed the condolence book - excluding immediate family members such as Garry and I, his brother and sister and their families, plus boyfriends and girlfriends and a few school friends).

Murray asked me to lead the service. To help me prepare my opening and closing remarks I leveraged notes from both my parent's funerals. I also took advantage of a rainy day in Samoa and spent the time drafting everything. I'm relieved the service was received well. It proved a superb blend of formality and informality with plenty of laughter and tears. Garry's brother, David, delivered a eulogy filled with anecdotes, capturing Rhonda's character perfectly. 

Murray was delighted by everything. I also received plenty of accolades for my role. The service was streamed online. As a result, I could replay a recording and experience it from the audience’s perspective. I must admit that the service flowed seamlessly and was a truly fitting tribute to an exceptional woman.

Afterwards, everyone retired to The Fiddler Hotel for an informal reception. Once again the numbers exceeded expectations. However, the hotel did a superb job of accommodating extra tables and additional catering at short notice.  The family then spent the rest of the afternoon reminiscing in the sunshine at a large table in the hotel's garden bar.

Savai’i (kind of)

Today’s day trip to Savai’i, Samoa’s largest island, didn’t go exactly as planned. Our guide, Chief Tai (yes he really is a local chief), picked us up from our resort at 6:40am. The early start was required in order to catch an 8:00am ferry across Apolima Strait to Savai’i. The weather forecast wasn’t ideal with passing showers forecast. However, our guide thought we’d be ok.

As we arrived at Mulifanua wharf the rain started falling. To our dismay, we discovered that the ferry company had rostered one of its landing craft vessels onto our scheduled sailing. This smaller vessel, the MV SSC Fasefulu, is an open deck ship with limited indoor seating. In other words, while crossing the 20km of ocean separating Upolu and Savai’i, we’d be exposed to the elements.

However, to our surprise, Chief Tai arranged for us to join the crew on the bridge. As a result, we stayed sheltered from the weather and enjoyed a bird’s eye view of cars and trucks being loaded on board. Below is an image of the ferry I later took during our return sailing. 

Once on Savai’i we made our way along the southern coast towards the island’s iconic Alofaaga Blowholes. However, as we ventured west the weather deteriorated rapidly into heavy showers. Our guide became increasingly agitated. He explained that the road is often blocked by localised flooding after heavy rain.

Apparently, heavy rain on the slopes of Mt Silisili, the island’s highest peak, can quickly overwhelm streams along the entire coast. At first, I thought he was exaggerating. That is until we encountered a fast-flowing dirty brown torrent surging knee-deep across the highway, less than a kilometre from the blowhole turnoff.

Needless to say, our guide promptly abandoned the tour and returned to Salelologa. As we drove he expressed fears that other streams were now flooding. Fortunately, his fears proved unfounded and we made it safely back to the ferry wharf. However, we passed over several bridges with wild waters raging below so his distress wasn’t entirely misplaced. 

As we approached Salelologa we stopped to admire Mu Pagoa Waterfall in full flood. The fall is an impressive sight. It flows over an arcing five-metre ledge of black volcanic rock directly into the pounding Pacific ocean. 

Access to the waterfall is across private land (we literally walked through a grassy paddock to get there). As a result, it’s not signposted from the road. We later learnt that thanks to this hidden access very few tourists actually see the falls. Even fewer witness it in full flood.

Our guide decided to return on an earlier sailing as poor weather often causes cancellations. As a result, we found ourselves disembarking in Upolu, hours ahead of schedule. Ironically, the weather on Upolu was only partially overcast, dry and warm. 

Our guide offered to refund the tour. While we appreciated the gesture, we declined his offer. Instead, to compensate us, he shouted lunch at a local resort and took us on a leisurely drive along the southwest coast. The church shown above, located in Falelatai, was one highlight along the way. Sadly my photos didn’t turn out so I’ve ripped this image from Google Street View.

Apia road trip

We hired a car for our first five days in Samoa. It got us from the airport across the island to our resort, let us stock up at the local supermarket and made it easy to schedule a couple of day trips. Today we finished our final hire day by touring Apia’s popular sights.

Our road trip started with a slightly hair-raising ride via the Cross Island Road. One section consisted predominantly of potholes with the occasional patch of solid asphalt. Along the way, we stopped to admire the spectacular Papapapaitai Falls, the Baha’i House of Worship and the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum. 

The falls were spectacular. Several fragmented ribbons of white water drop more than 100 metres into a jungle-clad gully. Our arrival at the lookout was initially hampered by a swirling mist. It slowly lifted as we watched and waited revealing the falls in all their verdant glory.

We had the entire Baha’i temple to ourselves during our visit. The local custodian came across from the nearby visitors centre to give us a brief overview of the Baha’i faith and the temple’s key features before leaving us to explore it alone. The custodian asked if I'd visited a Baha'i House of Worship before. When I mentioned the Lotus temple in New Delhi, she told us she'd been lucky enough to attend its opening in 1986.

The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum was equally quiet. The tour staff were on their lunch break when we arrived. As a result, we were invited to take a self-guided tour through this magnificent colonial homestead. Once again we had the entire building to ourselves and could explore it at our own pace.  The house and grounds were impressive.  However, I couldn't help feeling a little uncomfortable with the colonial undertones of exploitation that it clearly represents.

From the museum, we went into town for a swim at the rather ramshackle Palolo Deep Marine Reserve (lots of sharp coral shards underfoot!) followed by a leisurely lunch by the water's edge overlooking the exclusive Taumeasina Island Resort. After lunch, we had just enough time for a brief driving tour downtown. 

Our route included a brief stop at Samoa’s new National Parliament (currently under renovation and built in the style of a traditional tribal hut), the ornate Immaculate Conception Cathedral, and a drive-by of the infamous Downtown Clock Tower. Guidebooks claim the clock displays random time on one or more faces for no apparent reason other than dodgy maintenance.

Fono, the Parliament of Samoa, is not only a noteworthy sight with its contemporary-meets-traditional fale architecture but is also where some unique legislation has been made. For example, Samoa “skipped a day” when the country changed time zones in 2011. Previously, as happened in the Cook Islands, visitors crossed the dateline upon arriving in Samoa. Neighbouring America Samao, less than 80 km southeast of Upolo, still observes this time zone.

After returning our rental car to Blue Pacific Rentals, office staff arranged for a local taxi to take us back to the resort. The journey was an eye-opening lesson about living on “island time”. We wound down the windows, soaked in the sunshine, and watched the world glide by as our cab wound its way across the island at a speed rarely exceeding 25kph. A trip that typically takes 40 minutes ultimately took us more than an hour.