As mentioned in a previous post, when we were on the Black Opal Tour in Lightning Ridge, we visited a number of interesting places.
Interestingly the signs in ‘The Ridge’ are quite different. There are 5 Car Door Tours. Yes, along with other tourists we were a little confused about these at first. However, there are signs from car doors depicting camps, homes and tours and other eclectic items of interest.
On the Black Opal Tour we covered the basic ‘car door tours’, one of which included a trip to The Bottle House.
This house was originally a miner’s claim. The house was built in the 1960’s and constructed from about 5,800 beer bottles by Tex Moeckel when he moved to Lightning Ridge, where he was an occasional miner. The bottles as well as letting in light was also a fantastic insulator and kept the house really cool in those hot summer days of outback NSW.
Tex built the Bottle House, and lived in it as a house and studio. Tex was an artist of great diversity and passion and he painted to subsidise his opal mining earnings. On a trip to Sydney Tex met Nola Matthew and when they married Tex brought his new bride to live with him in the bottle house. She must have really loved him. Would you want to be living in a house made from bottles? Well Nola must have been a very special lady for sure.
The locals are not sure what happened but apparently Tex and Nola moved to Moss Vale and it is assumed that Arthur Germaine then bought it and lived in The Bottle House along with his wife. we were told that they slept up on the mezzanine floor of the house. Arthur found that if a bottle broke at any time, then the local clay around Lightning Ridge was best to use and easier to replace the bottle or bottles that broke.
Outside the house there was even a house for the dog. We were intrigued and loved the dog house as it was made from bottles as well. It is so cute. We were just not sure if the dog would be comfortable in there though. Our travelling companion Gracie (toy poodle) would not have enjoyed that type of comfort. She is rather a princess.
Today The Bottle House is a museum which displays some old wares, curiosities, bottle collections as well as, of course gem and rock collections.
So we suggest if you are heading to Lightning Ridge, which is the world renowned centre of the mining of black opals and other gemstone the Bottle House is a not to be missed feature of the rugged landscape.