The great opal hunt of 2018 (part 1)

The closest I've ever been to a real, live opal was in the Fortune of War Hotel in Sydney.

The Fortune of War Hotel a few years back. That's me in the hat.

For those who don't know of it, the Fortune of War is an 'early opener' in The Rocks, and one of just 143 pubs claiming to be the oldest in the colonies.

In happier times

Way back in the 1980s, I was a regular. The placed reeked of history, stale beer and Winnie Reds. There was the period-correct squishing and squelching underfoot as you walked to the bar, where you were called 'Darl'.

It was a glorious place.

Armed with a schooner of Toohey's Old and dressed in my best New Balance shirt, I'd sit facing the street and watch hordes of Japanese tourists trying to cram into the souvenir shop over the road.

But this story isn't about the Fortune of War. It's about opals.

Choose life

My glory days at the Fortune of War were in the leadup to the 1987 sharemarket crash, which wiped out my personal fortune of $400. It also wiped out the Japanese economy, but up until then, both I and the tourists were still spending up big time.

Spending on Ken Done prints, Choose Life shirts, stuffed koalas. And opals.

Opals, apparently, were something special. Better still, they were easy to flog at inflated prices to the type of people who valued Ken Done prints. I'm not one of those people, so never left my perch at the Fortune of War to see what all the fuss was about over the road.

Then, more than three decades later, I stumbled across a website listing 'ten things to do in Lightning Ridge'. It sounded so unenticing I knew I had to visit immediately.

The Ridge

Perhaps the journo who wrote the article was having an off day. But now I've visited The Ridge (as the locals call it), I guess he just ran out of words after writing 'yes, The Ridge has opals'.

When your number four rating in the top ten is 'Bob's beer can collection in Mainwaring Street', you know this is a place where you have to make your own fun.

But it's only an 800km drive from Sydney, and for all I knew, Bob's beer can collection might be something very special.

Plus, I'll never knock back a road trip in the outback. Where else can you find flocks of emus happy to race you along a stretch of deserted highway just for the hell of it? 

I didn't find any emus at The Ridge, but there were plenty of what people call 'real characters'.

In this context, 'real characters' are Australians with social skills and political views incompatible with polite society. You won't find many 'real characters' in North Fitzroy, for example.

But The Ridge is full of 'em.

No Poofters

I'd only been in the place for about an hour when I had my first disagreement with one of the locals.

It was in the only pub in town (happy hour runs from 11am to noon, which gives you glimpse into the ambience visitors can expect by late afternoon).

I asked for a schooner of Tooheys' Old, then flashed my debit card.

"Cash only".

Perhaps I suggested this was a bit odd in 2018, I can't remember, but I do know what the barman said when I asked for directions to the nearest ATM.

"600km north".

When I finally tracked down enough loose change from the floor of the car to pay for my beer, I retired to 'Wogs' corner'  and got chatting to another local.

Most people from Brisbane were poofters, he told me. And there weren't any poofters in Lightning Ridge.

Was this his way of checking me out? You can never be sure, so I retired to the mens' room and turned Grindr on.

Seems he might be right. The nearest Grindr contact was 467km away.

(more to come in part 2... yes, things get worse)