"Wonderful White Cliffs" a White Cliffs Travel Page by M0B1US

White Cliffs has to be one of the 'must-see' destinations in Outback NSW. Imagine a township in the middle of the desert where the best accommodation is underground, a township full of interesting and unusual characters, where everything you need to know can be found out by visiting the general store and where thousands of people hoping to make their fortunes over the last century, have turned the surrounding hills into a lunar landscape pock-marked with mines.

Like all opal mining towns there is a definite last frontier sense about the place.

White Cliffs came into existence in 1889 during a year of drought when four kangaroo shooters were hired to reduce their numbers on the Station. The roo shooters found opals and realising their possible value, sent them to Adelaide for appraisal by Tullie Cornthwaite Wollaston.

The stones interested him so much that he decided to make the journey into the Outback to investigate further and subsequently purchased the first White Cliffs opal, thus starting the field.

White Cliffs came by its name as a description of the white rock which every miner had to dig through to get to the opals.

William Johnstone arrived in 1892 to set up the first store and hotel but the town didn't really grow until 1893 when news of some good finds drew miners to the area, which began the development of the town's infrastructure. By 1897 White Cliffs had about 1,000 people.

Building materials were scarce and expensive and the heat in summer was extreme resulting in miners converting their old shafts into homes. The hills were made of solid sandstone rather than earth so the dugouts were in no danger of collapsing and the temperature was constant.

By 1900 there was an underground bar at the Centennial Hall and today there are around 140 dugout dwellings dotted around the town

Mining reached its peak in 1902 when about £140,000 of opals were found and large numbers of miners were still here until about 1914 when declining opal deposits and the beginning of WWI saw the town reduced to its present day size.

Today the permanent population is around 200, rising to about 500 in winter with the arrival of gem seekers. In 1987 the total production of opals from the White Cliffs fields was estimated to be AU$150 million.

Over the years there have been remarkable opals found in White Cliffs such as opal 'pineapples' and opalised shells.

The most unusual find was the opalised remains of plesiosaur found in 1976. It is nearly 2 metres long and believed to be around 100 million years old. For years it was on display in White Cliffs until being removed to Sydney.

Get a 'Mud Map' from the general store and go exploring! Check out the excellent shops selling opals.

Every visitor should make sure they visit the solar power station and take the well marked heritage trail which has a series of information panels at the most important sites in the settlement.

Be sure to check out the dugouts, most are private homes, but many are shops and a few are hotels or B&Bs. It is amazing what can be done to make them just like home and one even has an underground spa! Some families joke that if they are in need of another room, they just get the jackhammer out and dig away!

There are loads of quirky things to do here to keep you occupied for a couple of days!

By car! There is no public transport whatsoever. The only way to get here without your own transport is to arrange a tour from Broken Hill, into which you could catch the train.

White Cliffs is 98 km from Wilcannia (which is 974 km northwest of Sydney) through a scrubby, semi-desert landscape of saltbush plains inhabited by kangaroos, emus, wedge tailed eagles and lizards.

Remember all the usual common sense things about driving in the outback such as having enough provisions in case of breakdown and checking the vehicle is roadworthy before each trip.

White Cliffs is #2 out of my four 'NSW Outback' pages. If you are thinking of visiting White Cliffs, you should read my Wicannia page as you must drive through there to reach it!

To gain a greater understanding of the region, you should read my other Outback pages...

#1: Wilcannia - An disturbing insight into the plight of Australia's Aborigines.

#3: Broken Hill - Art, Mining and Flying Doctors, it has it all!

#4: Silverton - Mad Max meets Priscilla Queen of the Desert in this ghost town.