January 31 to 3 February - 4 days in Broken Hill

Broken Hill is a big story - the history fascinating, the people and .... there’s 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 return to revisit other spectacular spots like the Mutawintji NP in the cooler months next year (thatbdid nitbhapoen because of COVID). 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. They have been making their own flavourings for over half a century.

Another favourite place is Silverton, beyond 39 dips (in fact it is more than 39 seriously deep waterways crossing the road) from The Hill.once a hugely productive mining town, today it is a tourist spot made famous more recently when Mad Max 2 as filmed there. It was rather subdued in the summer heat. At this time of year people shut up shop and leave for the summer. But we did find the artist who creates wonderful things with glass and bought a bird (a magpie) to hang in our 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.

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Silverton Hotel

Lots of quirky places around Silverton

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 others. 

Awesome rocky outcrops contain 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 to be a magnet to artists. Maybe it is the colours of the desert, it would be for me - spectacular and glorious!

A couple of of Pro Hart’s collection of Rolls Royce and/or Bentleys.

White Rocks

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