Dr. Elizabeth Smith at the Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge explains how bizarre stony lumps inside the head of a crayfish allow the creature to grow as it matures.
Harold Hodges was an entrepreneur, innovator and businessman from Lightning Ridge, NSW, Australia. In 1971, he had a set of dentures made from black opal, Lightning Ridge's unique export. This is the story of Harold, his dentures, and how they ended up one of the most prized items in the opal and mining heritage collection of the Australian Opal Centre.
We meet up with Barbara Moritz, from the Lightning Ridge Historical Society to learn not only how Lightning Ridge got its name, but how it was three towns for the price of one -- Wallangulla, Nettleton and Lightning Ridge.
These guys are working tirelessly to restore a NSW Government Railways rail car set that ran up until the 1980s, servicing most of New South Wales. Here, we take a tour of the train and discuss the future of the project.
Collarenebri, in northern New South Wales, Australia, missed out by 'that much' on having its own railway station. Instead, the planned line was canceled nine miles from the town.
Dr. Elizabeth Smith from the Australian Opal Centre opens a box of donations, a collection of incredible opalised fossils from 110 million years ago, all found in the same location.
Barbara from the Lightning Ridge Historical Society shows us an early relic of the Lightning Ridge opal fields -- the pocket watch of the industry founder, Charlie Nettleton.
Graeme Anderson, retired potter from Lightning Ridge, explains some of the techniques he has used, and some of the bizarre ingredients he's combined to create eye-catching glazes.
Dr. Elizabeth Smith from the Australian Opal Centre presents a piece of the riverbed of a prehistoric waterway, with evidence of the plant and insect life that once lived there.
Barbara from the Lightning Ridge Historical Society has a mystery object...it's made from wood, it's hand-carved, and it's a piece of mining history. Can you figure out what it is?
Graeme Anderson is a retired potter from Lightning Ridge, who creates amazing and unique opal clay pots. He also lives in a grouping of old Sydney train carriages, which he collected when they were retired from the network in 1992.
Dr. Elizabeth Smith from the AOC shows us an opalised bone from a dinosaur suffering from a chronic condition, probably arthritis. Who knew dinosaurs could get arthritis? Paleopathologists, that's who.
On a recent visit to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, I found something I wasn't expecting. Don't you just love a clever, elegant engineering solution to a problem? Me too.
We take a look at the brass postal seal from the original Lightning Ridge settlement, how it was used, and how it came to be part of the LRHS's collection.
Dr. Elizabeth Smith from the Australian Opal Centre shows us some opalised fossils from Lightning Ridge that demonstrate how some species of snails, molluscs, lungfish and turtles haven't really changed much over millions of years.
We visit the Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge and explore opal from around the world, including opal from Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Honduras, the United States of America, Canada, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Tanzania and Turkey.
Monotremes are weird animals. Dr. Smith from the Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge shows us examples of prehistoric and modern platypus and echidna specimens.
A (shaky) video tour of Lightning Ridge in 1988, courtesy of my late father, David Gawthorpe. I believe he filmed this with his new toy, a Sony Video-8 Camcorder, to show his family at Christmas '88.
Watching the skies near Narrabri, NSW, the Paul Wild Observatory is a collection of science equipment that's discovering and teaching us more about the universe we live in.
Mungindi, NSW: John Brewer Cameron planted this post here in 1882, to mark the transition point of the NSW/Queensland border from the 29th parallel to the Barwon/Macintyre/Dumaresq rivers.
Weewarrasaurus is a tiny plant-eating dinosaur, and Mike is the fossil geek who discovered it. Learn about the process of identifying a new species, and how to go from a fossil enthusiast to having your name recorded against a new species.
The opal mining town of Lightning Ridge appeared, kind of, in a lost film that was made in 1920. I can't show you the film, but I can tell you the story.
From 2004-2009, Russell and Shaun were the "storm chasers" from Lightning Ridge. They photographed weather and lightning and their work is still on display in Lightning Ridge, if you know where to look.
There's opal, there's synthetic opal, and then there's this stuff. Minerals, biological materials and man-made substances that have similar visual properties to opal.
The Digger's Rest Hotel was a Lightning Ridge institution until it burned down in 2006. Check out some memorabilia from the pub with Barbara, Jenni and Graeme.
Opalised fossils aren't always colourful like you would expect opal to be. We asked Jenni Brammall at the Australian Opal Centre in Lightning Ridge just that.
In the 1850s, Sir Richard Owen coined the term "Dinosauria" and added the first three species to what we now call dinosaurs. One of them was...almost nuts.
Sometimes things don't work out as expected, and pottery firings are no different. Graeme Anderson from Lightning Ridge shows us some disasters and disappointments from his years of creating amazing opal clay pottery masterpieces.
