If you wear opals you will be particularly interested in our illustrations this week, for they depict life in the centre of the most famous opal fields in the world—those in northern New South Wales. The little town of Lightning Ridge, near Walgett, 470 miles north-west of Sydney, is here depicted, and a curious place it seems to be. When you visit Lightning Ridge by 'plane you park in the main street, as in the picture top> lett. On the left of the street is the town's one hotel, and on the right the "tree of knowledge,'* so called because in the days before the police arrived the elders of the town met under it and made laws for the community. The gentleman reading in the shade of his hut (top right) is Mr. "Bill" Wedgewood, Mayor of Lightning Ridge. Below on the left is a mud and stone hut occupied by a young Englishman who is forking claim! It blow* in Lightning Ridge, and, presumably, when it does this inhabitant holds on to his roof. The church in the fourth picture was nearly destroyed in a whirlwind. The people of Lightning Kidge propped – it up, and services are now held as usual.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

If you wear opals you will be particularly interested in our illustrations this week, for they depict life in the centre of the most famous opal fields in the world—those in northern New South Wales. The little town of Lightning Ridge, near Walgett, 470 miles north-west of Sydney, is here depicted, and a curious place it seems to be. When you visit Lightning Ridge by 'plane you park in the main street, as in the picture top> lett. On the left of the street is the town's one hotel, and on the right the "tree of knowledge,'* so called because in the days before the police arrived the elders of the town met under it and made laws for the community. The gentleman reading in the shade of his hut (top right) is Mr. "Bill" Wedgewood, Mayor of Lightning Ridge. Below on the left is a mud and stone hut occupied by a young Englishman who is forking claim! It blow* in Lightning Ridge, and, presumably, when it does this inhabitant holds on to his roof. The church in the fourth picture was nearly destroyed in a whirlwind. The people of Lightning Kidge propped - it up, and services are now held as usual.