Established in 1894 as another service stop for the shallow draught paddle steamers, Tilpa is now home to the shortest heritage walk in Australia. Luckily, it’ s just across the road from the pub so you won’ t get too thirsty. Our plan was to originally head all the way down the Darling and follow the flow from recent rains in far north New South Wales but we decided to head across through the Paroo Darling floodplain to White Cliffs before the area was shut by the flood water moving south. It ' s alway a good run west across the plains – it generally only takes a couple of hours.
White Cliffs has been a significant opal mining settlement since the late 1880s. Today, it thrives on tourists coming to explore the area and perhaps finding a fortune in opal-bearing rocks that date back 100 million years ago when this area was covered by ocean.
More often than not, this doesn’ t happen but it’ s a pretty cool place to visit.
The town is surrounded by a pockmarked landscape with over 50,000 unused mines. There’ s a heritage trail around the mines and town where you can discover the old buildings, crazy and unique shanty mine dumps, and it even highlights areas where you can fossick for free. Mind you, it gets bloody hot here in summer and that’ s why the locals live underground, where the daily temps are pretty stable.
Tilpa Pub.
More White Cliffs mines...
48 \