Lightning Ridge Bore Baths

Lightning Ridge, New South Wales' best-known black opal town, sits on the edge of the Great Artesian Basin and channels its bore water into a free, open-air soaking pool on Pandora Street, on the town's outskirts. The water — around two million years old by the time it surfaces, and running hot enough (commonly cited at 40-50°C) that visitors are advised to ease in gradually — flows continuously and the baths never close, a 24-hour amenity used as much by opal miners easing sore joints after a day underground as by passing travellers. The Hot Artesian Bore Baths, together with nearby Nettleton's Shaft on the McDonald's Six Mile opal field, are listed on the Register of the National Estate in recognition of their significance to the town's mining heritage and community life.