Sheepyard Flat | This Adventurous Age

A DAY OUT AT THE GRAWIN AUGUST 4

The Grawin is the name given to a series of opal fields some 70kms west of Lightning Ridge by road. They were mostly developed slightly later than the fields around the Ridge.

There are actually four general opal fields of The Grawin, though each has localities within it: the Grawin and Glengarry which have been mined almost as long as Lightning Ridge; Sheepyard which dates from about 1985 and is the most southerly; and Mulga Rush, the newest, dating from 1999. The best of the black opal is found out there. One piece, about the size of a fist, was named “The Light of the World”.

Some say that the Grawin area is like Lightning Ridge used to be, back in the “old days”. That comment is usually made quite nostalgically.

There are three drinking establishments at the Grawin fields: the Club in the Scrub, which is adjacent to the very rough golf course, hence the “Club”. There is the Glengarry Hilton, ironically named. The Sheepyard Inn is the most distant of the three.

There is a small general store, of sorts, at the Grawin. And that’s about it – apart from lots of holes in the ground, many miner’s camps which are mostly ramshackle affairs, some very large dumps of waste dirt from the mining process, and a maze of tracks connecting the camps and diggings. There are none of the modern amenities or services of Lightning Ridge – nor any formal law enforcers – and it seems that those who live out here like it that way.

We headed out of town to the highway. Stopped at the highway corner to inspect the tarted-up “agi” that is the feature of the welcome signs. An agi is an old cement mixer, used to wash the opal dirt and so make separating out any opal bearing rock easier. There are lots of these on the fields.

Noticed a little informal memorial around the back. Very much Lightning Ridge style…

Memorial

It was only a few kms down the highway to our next stop – Stanley the emu. This is a very large sculpted emu, the creation of artist John Murray, whose gallery is in town and whose iconic works often features stylized emus. Stanley is a true creature of Lightning Ridge, being crafted from “stuff” found about the place, including car doors.

Over the road from Stanley is the modern rest stop and free camping area.

Rest stop and free camp area

Then we turned onto the Cumborah road. The country was quite green, the dams were full, and there was quite a bit of surface water lying around. Someone had earlier told us that the green of the country was deceptive – that some earlier rain had caused the weeds to grow and there was not a great deal of proper feed yet – in that sense, the drought is still on.

By one stock grid was a sign saying “farmed goats” – presumably to stop some people thinking the goats were feral, and shooting them. Could see the any tree foliage in the goat paddocks was cut off in a neat, dead-straight line, at about reaching height for a goat.

Travelled through a variety of landscapes: grazing land, crop land, cypress pine woodland, mulga country. It is a varied and interesting drive.

Cumborah village appeared a battling little township that consisted of some occupied houses and a few farm related services. We turned to the north here and some 13kms later came to the turnoff to the Grawin. The sealed road ended at this point.

A few kms along the dirt road we turned off to follow a track through the golf course to the Club in the Scrub.

Golf course at the Grawin

Browsed about in the building, reading notices and looking at old photos.

The Club in the Scrub

John saw a man leaving with a box of freshly cooked chips that smelled great, so we ordered a $6 box. Lunch! I paid $10 for a laminated mud map of the fields, produced by a local guy called Duck. The man behind the bar was careful to tell me that the route it showed through the fields was not accurate, that some left turns should be right ones. I couldn’t quite follow his explanation, but figured that any map was better than none. According to the GPS unit in the Terios, we were driving through featureless paddocks out here!

On the Grawin weather rock

While we waited for our chips, watched a handful of local ladies playing bingo.

Sign points to the through road

A noticeable feature of some claims beside the track through the Grawin was the vacuum pumps positioned above the shafts – to suck up the dirt from below, as opposed to loading it onto some sort of hoisting machine. High tech on the fields!

We stopped at the big waste dumps at Mulga Rush.

Mulga Rush dump heaps

Only dump trucks allowed up there

John walked up to have a bit of a fossick on the heaps up top. I took Couey for a short walk, complete with muzzle, which she hates, but one doesn’t know what might be around out here.

View from the top

Then she went back into the car and I walked up to the top of the current dump and took some photos.

Noodling on the dumps

There were a few other people – all tourists, I think – scrabbling around up there, too. John did not stay long.

Roads every which way

We drove on towards Sheepyard Flat and stopped at the War Memorial on the way.

War Memorial

It was really well done – just in the scrub, overlooking a small lake which was probably once a washing dam.

The Memorial commemorates all of the conflicts that Australians have fought in.

Continued on to the Sheepyard Inn. This has made itself into rather a commemorative place for Vietnam War veterans. The emphasis on this suggested that a number of vets have fetched up in the mining camps of the area. Inside what is essentially a large shed, there are several large whiteboards where visiting vets record their names and numbers. There was a surprisingly large number of such records posted.

Having stopped there, we felt the need to patronize the place. John had a beer. I bought a can of Coke and wandered about, taking photos.

The area was an absolute maze of tracks.

The density of claims and shacks on them, in this area, was quite high.

Some of the vehicles we saw being driven around the tracks here were testament to a relaxed attitude to some laws, in these parts. Roadworthiness or registration were not always a priority, it seemed.

A sign at a track corner “Cars with brakes give way” may well have been intended as more serious than just a joke.

We got lost after leaving Sheepyard. Turned left when should have turned right. After about ten minutes driving, realized we were out of the mining area and heading south. U-turned and got ourselves onto the right track after an unintended tour of downtown Sheepyard. There were some mean gutters and ditches across the tracks around Sheepyard. Guess it kept speeds down.

When we were driving through these fields, they all appear flat but they, in fact, follow a long, low, shallow ridge.

We did not go into the Glengarry Hilton. A number of day trippers have lunch there, but we’d had our chips earlier. I was now going to take the sandwiches I’d made for lunch, back to the Bus, to toast for tea.

Back on our 2013 trip here, we had gone out to the Grawin several times for John to fossick on the dumps. Little appeared to have changed in the intervening time. It was still an interesting day out and one I would do again, on any future trip, just because there is so much to look at, and it is so unique.

WEDNESDAY 13 MAY LORNE STATION

Having plans for an outing today, we both made a reasonably early start to the day.

In town, we refuelled, and bought a newspaper, in order to see details of yesterday’s federal budget. It did not look as if we would be affected in any great way by its measures.

Whilst in town, John received a phone message, telling him that he had been elected to the Selection Committee of our local bowls club. He was pleased. So was I – maybe thinking about that would take his mind off buying a claim?

Our destination was the Grawin opal fields, some 66kms by road from Lightning Ridge.

The sealed road went to the hamlet of Cumborah, through grazing country with some lovely areas of cypress pines. Cumborah was sad, a nearly dead settlement. North of there, the road became gravel. We had no trouble finding the turnoff to the Grawin, about 10kms north from Cumborah.

The Grawin area began to be mined for opal at a similar time to Lightning Ridge – about 1900. It consists of three parts, really: Grawin to the north, Glengarry in the middle and Sheepyard Flat to the south of the mining area. The Glengarry section really got going in the 1970’s, and the Sheepyard from the mid 80’s.

**The Grawin area. Big waste dumps can be seen in centre of photo**

Like most Australian opal fields, the level of activity waxed and waned depending on the value of opal, and external circumstances like World Wars. Changing technology also affected the extent of mining. Today’s equipment, whilst it might seem a bit makeshift and primitive to we observers, is far advanced on the original pickaxes for digging and candles for lighting underground.

Our first stop was at the first manifestation of the fields that we came to – the “Club in the Scrub”.

This was the clubhouse and licensed premises for a nine hole dirt “green” golf course and general watering hole. The club was very quaint and quirky. Rough logs and corrugated iron featured prominently in the construction. After a bit of a browse around, including at the displayed notices, I bought a fridge magnet and a mud map of the fields, made by a local, and laminated. For this, I donated $5 to their SES. The lady behind the bar assured me that we would still get lost!

It was definitely not that easy to navigate around the diggings, even with map. We eventually got sort-of oriented, and able to guess at which was the main track amongst the myriad that went every which way. The surface was all the white claystone that typified the opal areas here.

**The white dirt of the Grawin – and the main road through it**

We passed lots of claims, some with structures on, some just marked by the assorted apparatus that lifts the dirt from the shafts below. Much of the gear on the claims was improvised – typical of opal fields. There was little effort to put any barriers around some of the holes – it certainly was not an area one would want to wander about on a dark night. I wondered how many diggers, staggering home after imbibing too much with their neighbours, had done a disappearing act down an unguarded shaft.

**A current mine, with apparatus to raise dirt from below, to dump truck**

The meandering track brought us to two huge waste dumps where it was obvious, from parked cars and people around, that there were several “noodlers” in action. Noodling is digging in waste dirt discarded by the miners, in search of opal they may have missed. In some mining areas, doing this on the waste deposited beside individual mines is likely to provoke a very unfriendly reaction from the miner, but here the big waste dumps were communal and noodling appeared to be tolerated.

**One of the massive waste dumps, showing ramp that dump truck used to get to the top**

After we ate our packed lunch sandwiches, sitting in Truck and watching the activity from afar, John decided to join the noodlers and walked up to the top of the pile. He was immediately offered a collection of opal pieces in a jar, by one noodler – and bought the jar! For $100. I didn’t know whether or not he was conned – there were some bits in there with flashy colours. But, on balance of probability, I reckon the guy picked him straight off as a soft touch. He reckoned there was a month;s worth of work in that jar. If that was the case, then he was hardly going to be living the high life on the proceeds.

Two trucks churned their way up the dirt ramp to the top of the heap, to dump their dirt. One was immediately set upon by the majority of the noodlers, as the waste came out of the tipper. They said it was the “right colour”, plus, I was sure, they knew whose dirt it was and that the fields’ grapevine had them “onto colour”.

**On the top of the waste dump, with truck tipping a new batch of discarded dirt**

I picked up more terminology out there today, than opal. When I joined John at scratching in the dirt, I did find a few pieces of potch – opaque opal-like stone without any flashing colour in it. It might be useful for John to practice on, if he ever decided to try cutting himself.

As we dug around in the heaps, not really knowing what we were doing, got talking to a young man nearby, doing the same. He told us to look for the pale white heaps (which they mostly all looked to me) or, best of all, the “biscuit” colour and structure. This was the layer down there, adjacent to the opal bearing one, and sometimes contained missed opal. He found a very nice chunk in the same heap as we were digging in, while we were there. He also told us that the newest area of diggings – a rich one – was just near this dump heap. I guessed that made it attractive to the full time noodlers.

After an unproductive couple of hours of this, we moved on around the tour route on our mud map of the fields.

At Sheepyard Flat we admired the War Memorial – very nicely done. I was to find that there were a number of Vietnam War veterans on these fields. The Sheepyard Inn was another unique place – casual the order of the day. We partook of a ginger beer each – cost $5 each, though!

Continuing on we passed, but did not stop at, the third of the licensed premises in this area, the Glengarry Hilton, so called. Three drinking places in a relatively small area – maybe there were a lot more miners living out here than was immediately evident?

In our time out there, we only saw a handful of people who appeared to be tourists like ourselves. It certainly was not over run with visitors. This might have been due to the unsealed roads, but maybe also because tourists were satisfied with their experiences at Lightning Ridge and assumed the Grawin was more of the same. We did not find this to be the case, and would tell our friends coming this way that they must make time for a day trip out to the Grawin.

We got back to camp about 4.30pm, after stopping by the roadside to collect firewood.

Tea was soup and salads, after which we sat round our campfire, mulling over the day and agreeing that it had been most interesting and enjoyable.

This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Tag Archives: Sheepyard Flat

2015 Travels August 4

2009 Travels May 13