PHOTOGRAPHY BY: Don
We left Tibooburra on Tuesday 15 July 2008 to head towards White Cliffs. While talking to other travellers, someone happen to mention Depot Glen and Milparinka as a must see.Charles Sturt arrived at Depot Glen on Preservation Creek on 27 January 1845. His party of 17
men also had horses, sheep and cattle. The party had been moving slowly, establishing camps by good water sources. By the time they established a camp at Depot Glen at the peak of summer, Sturt's party were unable to find water ahead and what were thought to be permanent sources behind them also disappeared. 
The party was marooned for six months and James Poole became very ill with scurvy. 
Rain fell in July and some of the party were sent to take Poole home, but he died during the second day's travel. He was buried a short distance from the campsite at a nearby tree blazed with his initials. A beautiful spot to camp beside a creek and amongst slate rock mounds.
men also had horses, sheep and cattle. The party had been moving slowly, establishing camps by good water sources. By the time they established a camp at Depot Glen at the peak of summer, Sturt's party were unable to find water ahead and what were thought to be permanent sources behind them also disappeared. 
The party was marooned for six months and James Poole became very ill with scurvy. Rain fell in July and some of the party were sent to take Poole home, but he died during the second day's travel. He was buried a short distance from the campsite at a nearby tree blazed with his initials. A beautiful spot to camp beside a creek and amongst slate rock mounds.
Milparinka is belied to be an Aboriginal word meanding "water to be found there", a reference to the water hole in Evelyn Creek. It's uch a surprise to come across a place like Milparinka where a small group of dedicated locals have adopted a whole-of-town approach
to preserve the region's rich history of exploration and settlement. Today beautifully restored colonial buildings provide the venue for the Information Centre. An open shed full of artifacts is visible from the town centre. The old commercial bank building has not been restored however the courthouse and police barracks along with a couple of cells have been fully restored.We were still having ExplorOz people stalking us along our travels, including Bob and Nora who 
own the same camper trailer as us. And as usual, we made our way to the Milparinka pub to enjoy a chat with the locals and a cold drink.
own the same camper trailer as us. And as usual, we made our way to the Milparinka pub to enjoy a chat with the locals and a cold drink.
From Milparinka, we continued our trip to White Cliffs heading south and driving past a salt lake just before the turn off to White Cliffs. A small sandy track from the Silver City Highway leds to the salt lake's edge. The salt lake has extremely saline brown loams and clays with little vegetation. Salt Lake fills predominantly from the Koonenberry Mountains in the south. Palgamurtie Creek 
brings this water into the southeastern end of the lake. Various creeks join Palgamurtie Creek between the Lake and the mountains. Ponto Creek and Funeral Creeks drain the western side of the Koonenberry Mountains and join Palgamurtie Creek first. Wheeney Creek flows into Morden Creek which drains the eastern side of the Koonenberry Mountains and joins Palgurmurtie Creek about 10 kilometers south of Salt Lake. A small unnamed creek also flows into the lake from the north and may contribute to flooding but this is unlikely to be particularly significant. In the period 1987-1990, Salt Lake contained water a few times. While water covered the surface of nearly the whole lake, it was not deep and did not attract many waterbirds. Salt Lake was filled to capacity in 1993.
On the left turnoff from the Silver City Highway to White Cliffs, 
you will discover a Tool Tree and Baby Tool Tree which surprisingly has a sign on it "please don't water". Now why would you water a Tool Tree?
White Cliffs, another town renowned for opal, but more famous for the White Cliffs Pineapples, a sphere of minerals formed that are 
eventually replaced by precious opal. By some quirk of mother natures, these pineapples ave only ever been found in White Cliffs. You never know, Don may find one of pineapples during his opal fossicking here in White Cliffs.
Arriving in White Cliffs is like arriving in any opal mining settlement. It is immediately obvious
that every regular activity comes a bad last to the one thing which drives the town - seeking a fortune! The pub is dusty and lonely, the general store is small and simple, the roads are rough and unsealed, the settlement is spread in every direction, and the attempts at 'civilisation' are crude and simplistic. White Cliffs housing operates on the iceberg principle with most of the town's 'buildings' being underground. For every building you see on the surface there are as many as ten more underground. 
For Tuesday night, we decided to stay at the White Cliffs 
Underground Motel for the night. Room with a queen size bed only $99. This motel is the world's largest underground motel. After entering the side of a flat topped hill, you find a cool and spacious motel. It is 22 degress all year round. Sky lights in every room add to the sense of comfort underground with a soothing flow of fresh air and soft lighting. 
Sleeping underground is an unforgettable experience with the superior quiet, deep dreaming and the magical lighting. We decided to add a 3 course dinner ($35 each) and continental breakfast ($10 each) to our stay making the total experience memorable. Lucky the room had a skylight otherwise I think we would have slept in most of the day.
On leaving the Underground Motel on Wednesday 16 July 2008,
Richard, the manager, told us to go and see Macca who operates the only open cut mine in town up on the hill called The Blocks. After looking at his opals and taking a small tour of the open cut, we asked Macca if we could possibly camp on his claim so that Don doesn't have far to walk 
for fossicking. There is a caravan park in town for $15 per night but after splurging out on a motel last night, free camping sounded very good. Although it is quite cold and windy up on the mountain, our view is spectacular with beautiful sunrises and sunsets.
For the next few days Don fossicked while I caught up on the website stories as you can see. We collected some firewood from the local garbage tip and had some wonderful camp oven meals. The days are quite warm but the nights are still fairly cold - thank god we bought that gas heater back in Yowah.We have been on the road now for 3 1/2 months and are loving the life style - meeting very interesting people, seeing some quirky country towns, making sure we have enough fuel, gas, water and food to last us on our trips. Normal life? This is it!
Thursday night was so windy that we couldn't start a fire or cook in the kitchen without having to put up the whole canvas awning so we decided to head into town instead and have a meal and the local takeaway shop. Some fish and chips later and we were both full and ready for bed while the camper swayed with the north westerly winds.
Friday came and my beautiful stainless steel kitchen was totally covered with red bull dust that had blown in from yesterday. After cleaning it for an hour or so, I decided that the best option is to pack it away while the wind continues to blow. I stayed indoors again while Don went fossicking - did I mention I really HATE WIND!
Probably because of the wind, Friday night was one of the most spectacular sunsets I
have every seen. Don captured some magnificant photos - take a look for yourself. 
After the brilliant sunset, we had dinner at the local takeaway shop with Macca and some of his friends. Great time talking to the local opal miners. If you ever stop in White Cliffs go to the local takeaway shop on a Friday night and ask for the chicken schnitzel. It is massive. I don't know how Jessica is going to get all the way through it.After such a brilliant sunset last night, who would have thought
that sunrise on Saturday morning would result in images like this.Saturday was a lazy day around camp. Too windy to do anything. I have come to the conclusion that not only do the White Cliffs people live underground in dugouts because of the heat in summer, but also because of the gale force winds and bull dust that blows around. However, I did manage to finish reading the RFDS book we won - lots of short tales about what went right and what went wrong on RFDS trips and evacuatons. Very interesting book - great to read stories and hear of places that we have been like Innamincka, Tibooburra and Thargomindah. The wind continued throughout the night so we didn't get much sleep at all.
On Sunday morning we awoke at 10am (big sleep in because of the windy night). After having some lunch, we decided to put the full annexe up for first time ever. That includes full annexe roof and walls. It will protect the kitchen more from this blasted wind - did I mention that I HATE WIND! Anyway, we did manage to put it all up in the wind and in some sprinkling of rain.After lunch we visited Macca at his dugout. Even though we are camping on his claim, Macca lives in a dugout just on the outskirts of town and out of the bloody wind! Great, cozy dugout with main bedroom, spare bedroom, bathroom, lounge, dining, kitchen including shed dugouts on the outside. While we were there, an opal dealer from Germany, Christoph, and his wife, Petra and son, Feliz turned up and eventually bought all of Macca's opal pineapples and rough opals - $3,500 later and the deal was done.
Andy rang today to tell us he might turn up here on Monday to spend a night with us. It will be good to see him again.
Also it was good to learn more about Macca. John McCaskill, alias Macca, left school at a young age to assist his parents dairying in Gippsland, until the age of 200 when he joined the Victoria Police Force. Not retired, he spends the better part of the year mining Opal at White Cliffs. He has also written a book of bush poetry called "Sundowners, River Gums and Mulga". A great read and a true Aussie character. Once again, thanks, Macca, for letting us camp on your claim for a few days.Andy messaged on Monday morning. Unfortunately he is having problems with his turbo - well it is a Toyota after all, so he won't be able to make it to White Cliffs - what a shame. We will have to catch up with him somewhere else.
The wind has died down bit but not altogether. Did I mention how much I HATE WIND! Anyway, now that we have the full annexe up, it is a lot better and at least can use the kitchen.
We spent time today and coffee with a couple we met at Friday night's dinner, Craig and Heidi, and their 2 girls, Ruby-May and Jessica. Lovely couple from the Adelaide Hills and lovely girls (for ferals that is). Hopefully, we will catch up with them one day when we are in South Australia.
Tuesday and Wednesday were much the same with Don fossicking and me having to deal with the wind. Lucky I enjoy my own company during the day and that I have lots of things to keep me busy such as reading, knitting, laptop work, music, etc.
The back driver's tyre was a bit flat on Wednesday morning so I pumped it up and kept an eye on it but unfortunately by early afternoon it had gone down again. Only a slow leak so we took it off and with a soapy squirty bottle found the small hole that was causing the slow leak. Funny how this is our first puncture after driving so many dirt roads and we get a puncture when we haven't been anywhere in over a week apart from the dump to pick up wood and the general store for supplies.
On Thursday I made picklets for morning tea for our guests Craig, Heidi, Jessica and Ruby-May and of course, Macca. The day ended up the same as usual (did I mention how much I HATE WIND!) and we hired our first DVD "I Am Legend" and ate chips and chocolate while watching the movie.
On Friday night, we had our first fire after a week or so of wind (did I mention how much I HATE WIND!).
On Saturday morning, we visited another local, Wendy who lives
in a massive dugout with husband, Neville and their 2 girls. Again, beautiful people and a beautiful home which they have only just completed a month or so ago.We have been hiring DVD movies over the last fews days to watch at night for $7 a pop. So, if you have movie DVDs you don't want anymore please sent them to the address on the right. Gets a bit boring at night after a fire and dinner and we have seen all of our DVDs now about 5 times each.
On Sunday night, White Cliffs held their Christmas in July celebration. For $25 each, you get all you can eat roast and vegies as well as hearing the local children sing Christmas carols. It was a very nice meal with over 80 people to cater for. Lovely desert as well. The locals gave Don and I a very warm welcoming. 
Especially, Roundy and his partner, Janine who ended up inviting us over after the celebration for drinks at their dugout. We ended up sleeping over in their dugout as the drinking and conversation didn't finish till 3am in the morning. A massive dugout, Roundy has more toys than you can throw a stick at. Trikes, motorbikes,
camper trailer, caravan, Wennabago, F250, utes, 4 wheelers, Mustangs, Harleys, just to name a few. His collection of match box cars scattered all through the dugout in glass cabinets are worth over $200,000. Lovely people who are very down to earth and we enjoyed their company immensely. On Monday morning, we awoke to spend breakfast with Roundy and Janine. We hope to meet up with them at the Louth races on 9 August. Thanks for letting us sleep over. 
On our way home, we visited more locals, Brad and his wife, Hayley, their 10 month old daughter Jessica-Rose and Brad's 
mum, Sharon. They live in a shed on one of their claims and spend only 1 month per year here. Brad drives a GQ Nissan Patrol with a 5in spring lift, 2in body lift, 35in tyres and purple front and rear bars - very nice Patrol. Brad also has another claim away from his camp that he is starting to dig so we went fossicking there for the day. Needless to say we did find a bit of colour so Don was very happy. We invited them over for dinner that night and had a great night watching 4WD DVDs from Brad's 4WD club trips.More to follow in the next couple of days.
Don't forget to check out "more photos".
