One of the longest-running attractions in Lightning Ridge, the Walk in Mine, much to the disbelief of some members of the community who thought it closed a long time ago, has changed hands to come under the management of a new family enterprise in town.

Greg McKay with wife Sharyn and son Clint, who form the venture, are crossing their fingers in the hope that the Walk in Mine will live up to their expectations.

They have previously, and still maintain a presence, in mining boulder opal in Quilpie, Queensland. There they ran their own business the ‘Opal House, a converted pub, that they turned into a successful sales room with a café and art gallery.

The McKay family has been in the business of opal mining for nine years, where Greg was president of the Queensland Opal Miners Association for some time.

While still being in transition with the move, it was an easy decision for the family to head south.

“I’ve always been coming to Lighting Ridge for trade shows and we had noticed that the Ridge gets a lot of traffic you don’t get anywhere else,” said Greg McKay.

“We agreed there was opportunity here and decided this was where we would put most of our time,” he said.

The Walk in Mine has been in operation since the early sixties and is one of the reasons why they decided to take it over.

“It has credibility,” said Mr. McKay.

“We predominantly process and sell our own product and with tourism from the Walk in Mine we have more exposure.”

The family expects to manage the mine with a long-term plan in mind with future projects already in the pipeline.

“New attractions will be added before the start of the next tourist season,” he said.

“If business works here we will duplicate elsewhere.”