We are stuck in the distant Australian outback, our only hope to get to civilization being a bus that comes one week from now. We’re in Lightning Ridge, a town of approximately 1500 people, 13 hours’ drive from either nearest major city, Sydney or Brisbane. We have no car, and there is no commercial airport. Jana and I just spent two hours dragging all our worldly possessions through the red dust to a tiny room with no toilet, in the town’s caravan park.

• 

• 

• 

How did we end up here you ask? Read Part I of how we got stranded in Lightning Ridge here.

After our bus tickets were booked, the situation gave us time to reflect. While I was stuck in that caravan park, with no place to call home, halfway between where we used to live and our next destination, a good friend asked me on Instagram: Where do you consider home?

Truly in that moment, I was just grateful Jana and I were alive and well. Regardless of our predicament, we had our health and we had each other. 

My answer was simple: Home is where you have people that you love, and people who love you. 

This dusty town, regardless of how we felt about it at the time, was our home for the next week. We had each other and nobody else.

What did we do in Lightning Ridge for a full week you ask? Well, it was a surprisingly good time, but with a twist at the end (I think the title gives that away).

Lightning Ridge is famous for its black opal mines which we did not see, as that required booking a tour, or driving (we had no car). Instead, we explored the free local attractions on foot.

We started off with the local casino slash gentleman’s club, which was not our vibe. We continued to a surprisingly interesting art gallery set up by talented local artist John Murray. Go check him out on Redbubble as well, he sells great art. I still wish I’d bought a few prints. We did buy a magnet that perfectly described what happened to us: a terrified emu with a car speeding towards him in the reflection of his eyes.

For dinner, we had two choices, Italian or Italian. Yes, the only two restaurants open for dinner in this small Aussie town were both Italian!

After dinner, we went to explore the second local nightlife hotspot that isn’t the gentleman’s club: the Artesian Bore Baths.

The Artesian Bore Baths of Lightning Ridge are in essence a massive, superheated, sulphur smelling water-filled hole in the ground. The heat may or may not actually boil you if you spend more than 15 minutes in it, but the locals seem to love it!

As we’re gently sous-viding ourselves in the scalding spring water, a nice Aussie man strikes up a conversation with us. We’re here for a week, might as well make friends with the locals, I thought. Maybe somebody can get us a ride out of town sooner. So we’re talking about our experience thus far, how we got stuck here with all our possessions without a drivable car, and how we’re staying in the only room with no toilet in the local caravan park. Jana leaves to get changed, and I continue chatting with the man.

He asks what I do for work. I tell him I was an account manager at a major internet company in Melbourne, and I ask him. He lives out of his car, visiting different parts of Australia. He’s not a local. What he does for work? Who knows. Have you bought a new car yet? He asks. I tell him that we’re planning to buy a car in Brisbane, since there aren’t really any options in Lightning Ridge. Buy a car here! My friend is selling his car. And so I wonder, how does he have friends in a town he’s just passing through? He starts to get a bit pushy about buying his friend’s car, and I eventually end the conversation. I go sit on the other end of the baths as Jana is changing and getting ready to leave. A local retired policeman comes up to me: Stranger danger, he says with a look of concern in his eyes. Wise words mate, wise words.

Jana comes outside and gives me our bag. My turn to hit the change room. While I’m away changing, the man approaches Jana. How are you doing financially? He asks. We’re alright, says Jana. We’ve got enough savings to last for the next few months so we’re not too worried. Cars break, these things happen. So how long are you staying in town for? Maybe I’ll see you again at the baths. Oh, we’ve got our bus out of town booked for 6 am on the 11th. Says Jana. Nice, says the man. Hope I see you again! He says as he smiles and leaves.

I come out of the change room and we start walking home down the long, dark, unlit road. You didn’t see that man again did you? I ask. He turned out to be a bit of a weirdo. Oh that local guy? Yea, he seemed a bit concerned about us, asking me if we’d be alright making it out of town. It was then that Jana recounted what she told him, and I recounted what she missed while she was changing. In that moment, the dark, dusty street got a whole lot darker.

This strange drifter knew where we were staying, that we had all our possessions with us, and that we had a decent amount of money. He even knew what day and time we were leaving and where we’d be waiting for the bus, alone, with all our stuff. 

I think we might be getting robbed, I tell Jana.

A few minutes later, as we’re walking home, I see a ute (Aussie for pickup truck) driving towards us down the road. It screeches to a halt and they turn on the cabin light. I swear on my life I’m not making this up. The passenger is the man from the baths!

Get in guys, my friend wants to show you his car. He says. It’s 10 PM! What is going on. We’re good thank you! I respond as we start walking away hurriedly. Let us at least drive you home! He yells back at us. All good, no need! I respond as we start walking even faster. The rusty ute pulls a violent U-turn and heads straight back the way it came from.

Jana and I are now both nearly s**ting ourselves. We’re thousands of kilometres from civilization. It’s dark, there’s a creep looking for us with his friends, and we don’t know anybody else in town. I’m looking over my shoulder the entire walk home. Back at the caravan park, it was a long and sleepless night for me.

The next morning, I called the local police number to let them know what happened, lest somebody else be targeted by this guy, or should we disappear mysteriously in the outback without a trace.

To my great reassurance, the lady on the other end of the line was all the way in Sydney, just 13 hours’ drive away. But, she said she’d let the officer in charge of that region (!) know. It was then that I learned there isn’t really a police presence in this town of ~1500 people. I guess it’s assumed the people will police themselves, and the emus will get them if they do something really stupid.

Word travels fast around here. After hearing the stories from other staff about our car getting wrecked by the emu, and the creep from the baths, one of the girls working at the front counter of the caravan park insisted that she drive us the morning of July 11th to our bus. To this day I’m grateful for the people out here. We had at least 6 bags worth of stuff and it would have taken three trips, easily an hour of walking back and forth in the dark before sunrise. She loaded it all into her ute and we were there in 5 minutes.

• 

• 

• 

To our luck the bus was already there, and even the driver had heard about our story. We were well over the limit for bags, and we planned to leave the less important ones there, but he let us on regardless. No worries mate.

And just like that, we left Lightning Ridge, a long, emu-free ride for 13 hours to Toowoomba where we picked up our insurance-covered rental car and drove the final 2 hours to Brisbane. Civilization! Thinking back though, the vast nothingness in Lightning Ridge was a highlight of my year in Australia. Most importantly, I still think back to the total strangers; people we didn’t know and had no reason to trust, and how they looked after us in our times of need, despite knowing they’ll never see us again and have no reason to be kind to us but the goodness in their hearts.

That, kind people of the internet, is the essence of the Australian spirit.