February 2002


TRANS-GLOBAL JOURNEY BY KAYAK:
COLOURFUL NEW 'SPECK' IN LIGHTNING RIDGE HISTORY

The opal mining town of Lightning Ridge has a fascinating history filled with colourful characters, tall tales and great humour. It is largely a history of pioneering individuals who were inspired - some say driven - to dig for opal in the unforgivingly harsh environment of the Australian outback. It is a history rich with stories of survival, hope, and remarkable individuals - of people like Oskar Speck.

Seven-year journey from Germany to Australia - by kayak!
Lightning Ridge has a history of permanent settlement dating back a century. Piecing together the story of this pioneering past is a delightful adventure, full of surprise discoveries and unexpected connections between times, places and people.

In January this year, 'Ridge' historian Barbara Moritz was handed a clipping from Australia's The Daily Telegraph.

"Paddling on Speck," read the headline. The accompanying photograph showed a fair-skinned, white-shirted man steering a kayak upon a large river, flanked by a dozen New Guinean men in two canoes (The Daily Telegraph 30 January 2002, p.31). The article referred to an exhibition called 'Watermarks: Adventure, Sport and Play,' at the Australian National Maritime Museum.

"In 1932," Barbara read, "Oskar Speck left Ulm in Germany to search for work."

Barbara scanned ahead, wondering what possible connection there could be between an unemployed German, a bunch of men on a river in New Guinea, and the distant, dry Australian town of Lightning Ridge....

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Oskar Speck left Germany in 1932, heading for Cyprus in a collapsible kayak of laminated rubber, canvas skin and pliable timber frame. Two zipped compartments protected his navigation aids and supplies of food and water.

Speck paddled from Ulm, Germany, down the Danube River to Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. On reaching the Mediterranean Sea, he hoisted a small sail, and this way covered some 200km along the Mediterranean coast. He island-hopped to Turkey, then to Cyprus where, after looking for work in the copper mines, he decided to continue his trip.

Finding he was not allowed to enter the Suez Canal, Speck folded up his kayak and took a bus from Syria to the Euphrates river. He paddled to the Persian Gulf, then along the Malabar coast of India to Sri Lanka, up the east coast of India and around the Bay of Bengal, arriving in Burma in 1936. From there he went to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, then on to Java, Timor and New Guinea. Paddling the long way around the coast of New Guinea, he travelled Torres Strait to reach Sai Bai Island, an Australian Territory.

When Speck finally stepped ashore on Australian soil in 1939 - after a perilous seven-year, 50,000-kilometre voyage - he was siezed because Australia was at war with Germany. For seven years Speck lived in internment camps, first on Thursday Island, then in Victoria and South Australia.

During his time of internment, Speck learned opal cutting from Bill Klein, an Australian of German birth. Klein - who, together with Kurt Stephens, had found the famous opal 'Light of the World' in 1928 - offered his opal-cutting expertise to fill in time for the internees.

Within days of his release at the end of World War II, Speck was trying his luck at Lightning Ridge. He worked in the opal mines, and became a successful opal cutter and dealer.

Historian Barbara Moritz could not recall any reference to Oskar Speck in her historical records. She asked around the 'old-timers,' and finally found a couple of the older men who did remember the remarkable German.

Barbara discovered that Speck was well known in the Australian opal industry in the 1960s, and that after spending some time in Lightning Ridge, he had moved to Sydney, where he remained active in the opal business. Ron McKay, now retired from the Grawin opal fields near Lightning Ridge, remembers taking opal for sale to Speck's Sydney home in around 1969; and Greg Sherman recalls friendly barbecues at the home Speck built himself in the suburb of Kilcare. Greg says that Speck was also a good engineer and built the first opal calibrating machine, which he demonstrated by cutting cog wheels in opal. Speck died in 1995, aged 88.

"The opal world is small one," says Barbara Moritz, "but the link-ups are sometimes surprising."

The town of Lightning Ridge still has a pioneering spirit, and a good many residents with amazing stories to tell. In the decades since Oskar Speck arrived in 'the Ridge', people from all over the globe have been drawn to the black opal capital of the world. Today, Lightning Ridge has a rich and diverse community, with people from more than 50 countries united in their search for the unique 'Ridge' lifestyle, and for opal - the Queen of Gems.

Photographs reproduced with permission of Lightning Ridge Historical Society:
TOP: an opal miner with the Lightning Ridge publican and his children in the 1940s, around the time Oskar Speck was in Lightning Ridge. The men lean on a windlass that was used to raise buckets of 'opal dirt' to the surface from up to 70 feet underground.
BOTTOM: a miner reads the newspaper outside his camp dwelling at Lightning Ridge in the 1920s. Miners lived in camps cobbled together from whatever materials they could find. Common building materials included timber, stone, corrugated iron, bark, hessian and flattened kerosene tins. Water was scarce and valuable, so people used any available surface to drain water into tanks and other vessels.

 

If you're interested in the history of Lightning Ridge, or have something to contribute to the story Barbara and her colleagues are piecing together, you might like to visit Lightning Ridge Historical Society's web page. You can access more information about Lightning Ridge easily, by clicking on our links in the 'Lightning Ridge' section of Lost Sea Opals' links page.

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