HISTORY AND OUR STORY
OUTBACK OPAL TOURS started in 2004 and the concept was to capture the true outback spirit – combined with great history & information about our famous Lightning Ridge Black Opal.
Petar Borkovic and Franka Friedrichs-Borkovic are the current owners and directors of OUTBACK OPAL TOURS.
Petar was born and raised here in Lightning Ridge and is a second-generation opal miner. His parents immigrated from Serbia in the early sixties.
Petar’s (most people call him Borko) wife Franka came as a backpacker from Germany in 2006. She fell in love with this multicultural place first, followed by falling in love with her opal mining husband.
OUR MISSION
OUTBACK OPAL TOURS is aiming to deliver an authentic memorable and unforgettable experience for the visitors of Lightning Ridge, which they wouldn’t get on their own.
Most of all we want to share our love and passion for our unique outback town and black opal mining industry with our guests.
OUR VISION
Every Lightning Ridge visitor will come on one of our tours to see and experience THE RIDGE with us.
We are dedicated to create remarkable and long-lasting memories for you by providing real tours by locals for the real experience. We want to show you what we do and why we live in our unique town.
OUR TEAM
We pride ourselves on the standard of our tours and we are very aware of our responsibility to provide well informed, environmentally conscious, and highly trained tour guides.
All of our tour guides have a special connection to Lightning Ridge. They grew up here or lived in our multi-cultural town for a long time, thus having a sound knowledge of our local area focusing on its history, Aboriginal culture, geology, and natural environment.