Broken Hill

  After we left Goondiwindi and started heading thru the open country we started seeing more and more Aboriginal people in the small towns we passed thru. Appeared that there were numerous aboriginal homelands interspersed throughout the territory of Western Queensland and Northern NSW, and at any rate we started to encounter them more and more as we proceeded on. Even had the unique cross-cultural experience of waiting in line at the McDonald's in Broken hill behind a couple of aboriginal teenage girls, who acted just like any other girls the same age except that they came from a culture that can trace its origins in Australia back 60,000 years...and some say as long ago as 80,000.

Broken Hill was an interesting place in a true "Wild West" sort of way. It began as a mining town around 1885 when the richest lode of silver ore ever discovered was found along an exposed 7 mile seam. They've been mining here for 130 years and it appears that there's no end in sight. It was this discovery that began the mineral rush that has resulted in Australia being the largest net exporter of a variety of metals in the world...and made millionaires out of the original station hands who chanced to stumble upon the lode of silver oxide while boundary riding on their cattle station.

Looking up Sulphide street towards the mother lode that dominates everything in the town. The structures sit atop the slag heap of tailings from the mine. One is a Miner's Museum, and the other is a trendy restaurant with a very nice view of the town and the surrounding desert - just have to lift your gaze a bit from the moonscape in the immediate vicinity.

 

 

Most of the houses in the town were similar to this "Tinny". The place we stayed was just a few doors up the street.

One side trip was to the old ghost town of Silverton about 20 kilometers outside town. It was the location of the first strike in the area, but was quickly overshadowed and faded into obscurity once the mother lode was discovered in Broken Hill. Today it's a little time capsule of how it used to be around here. This hotel is a famous Australian icon - has served as an outback film location for everything from local beer commercials to motion pictures - Mad Max was filmed here, among other films.

The Anglican Church still looks to be in pretty good shape considering it's over 100 years old. It was the film set for "A Town Like Alice"...one of Rita's favorite films.

This view only hints at the remoteness of this location. The pavement ends about 5 kilometers further on and the road changes to gravel and dirt after that. If you continue to drive north on this road you have to go another 850 miles before you encounter the next paved highway...in northern Queensland. Now that's remote.

A look at the desert between Broken Hill and Silverton.

Back in 1860 an expedition departed Melbourne with the intention of being the first to cross the continent from north to south, to open the way for a telegraph line and further settlement. The expedition was led by a couple of blokes named Burke and Wills - two very famous Aussies (especially in Victoria) - their version of Lewis and Clark I suppose. Anyway, the explorers made it almost to the Gulf of Carpentaria before they were forced to turn back because of the torrential rains. Both perished in the desert on the return leg thru a combination of bad planning and bad luck. This is Maidens Hotel in the town of Mennindie on the Darling River...famous as the last stop for the explorers before they headed into the "Ghastly Blank" as the Australian interior was referred to in the 19th century. Probably doesn't look much different than it did for the farewell party held in the explorers honor before they pushed off. Quite an evocative place, actually.

Lots of stately sandstone buildings in and around Broken Hill testify to the flush times of the Victorian era.

It was kind of a quirky place too. Came upon this monument in one of the local parks - turned out to be a memorial to the bandsmen of the Titanic, whose courage in continuing to play until the ship sank was so admired by the local population that they commissioned this obelisk in their honor. Thought there might have been a local angle regarding the sinking, ie maybe one of the new silver barons was aboard but, no, nothing like that. They just admired the story and wanted to memorialize it in their own way.

After 5 nights in Broken Hill we headed another 6 hours further west to Adelaide...another one of my favorite cities.