January 31 to 3 February - 4 days in Broken Hill

Broken Hill is a big story - the history fascinating, the people and .... just too much to tell you here, so I’ll be brief-ish! Suffice it to say the heat kept us a bit quiet, but we did check out a few favourite places with promises to revisit other spectacular spots like the Mutawintji NP in the cooler months next year. Always a must when we visit The Hill is to stop by for a milkshake or spider at Bell’s Milk bar where time seems to have stood still in the the 50s or 60s.  

Bell’s Milk Bar in South Broken Hill. They have been making their own flavourings for over half a century. So retro!

Another fav is Silverton, beyond 39 dips from The Hill. Once a hugely productive mining town, today it’s a tourist spot made famous more recently when Mad Max 2 was filmed there. It was rather subdued in the summer heat - people shut up shop and get out of dodge for the summer. But we did find the artist who creates wonderful things with glass and bought a bird to hang in the bedroom window to replace our rather chipped king parrot we bought there 8 years ago. Goes without saying, we had a coldie at the pub. Sadly Mad Max’s car once a real attraction is no longer there but it’s still a fascinating pub.

A twilight visit to the breathtaking Living Desert and Sculpture Park.  The sandstone sculptures came out of a sculpture symposium held on a rather stunning hilltop in 1993 with artists from around the world (including Georgia, Mexico, Tiwi plus). 

Within the Living Desert reserve awesome rocky outcrops contain some aboriginal artefacts

A few of the sculptures from the Living Desert

Broken Hill is also a centre of excellence for painting so we did a gallery crawl one day with a return visit to Pro Hart’s gallery.  BH seems like a magnet to artists. I think it’s the colours of the desert, it would be for me - spectacular and glorious!

Within the Living Desert reserve awesome rocky outcrops contain some aboriginal artefacts

A couple of of Pro Hart’s collection of Rolls Royce and/or Bentley. Love the paint work!

Huge outcrops of shimmering white quartz give this place its name- White Rocks. It was hear that there was a 3 hour shoot out between a couple of Turkish sympathisers and police during WWI. 4 people killed 7 wounded in the only hostilities on Australian soil during the Great War; the rebels were not Turks.