Open cut opal mining country

Went down the road yesterday to an old open cut mine that was ended years ago. They can't do mining like that now as the land has to be left as you found it after mining it. Simon reckoned he's taken me out there before but he must've gotten confused with someone else. I thought it was very interesting, not only the open cut mine but also there was a couple of views of the sort of typical Lightning Ridge setting. It's quite hard to get a picture like that as it's all so flat out here, and a rise like in the photo is rare.

This one is just near the mine, and is typical of the sort of landscape around the place; lots of big piles of dug up dirt from people mining for opal. 

This one shows typical Lightning Ridge; people come and set up camp on some land and mine opal. This was while we were walking around the big open cut mine to the lookout that they've built there.

It was a bit of a walk, but eventually we came to this sign (not sure why it's on a car door).

Got to the lookout, and this was a sign there (click to enlarge if you want to read it):

And these are some of the mine itself. I was very pleased about how the colours came out in the photos.

Had a bad night last night. The fire was a bit smoky, as one bit of wood wasn't burning so well. Think the throat and nose infection has slowly been improving, but the smokiness aggravated it badly. It was so bloody painful, hurting to breath. Simon gave me a couple of Panadeine Forte when I went to bed, but even that didn't get rid of the pain. Very unusual as that always works for me. Considering a visit to the little hospital here to see what they have to say. Seems a bit silly going to go a hospital for the flu, but what do you do in a situation like this?