BROKEN HILL

We decided to finally have a really good look at Broken Hill having been there twice and not getting much of a look around so from Gilgandra we headed north west again determined to see all the sights. This part of our trip was the worst for weather with some heavy rain and strong head winds which lasted for several days and affected our fuel usage calculations badly. Before leaving Melbourne in June we had the fuel gauge repaired but it only lasted about 300km so we had been dipping the tank and calculating mileages quite successfully for 10,000km or more without problems. However 3-4 days driving into the wind caught us out of diesel 60km short of our destination.  Quickly rolling Scruffy off the trailer Allen back tracked and got fuel but the hand pump to pull the fuel through to prime the system wasn’t working. Thank God for RACV Total Care! A mechanic came from Broken Hill with a 12volt fuel pump and managed to get us going. Towing would have cost around $1500!

Our camp at Broken Hill - even undercover parking!



We got into Broken Hill and spent a week parked at the Racecourse. We visited the Miners Memorial overlooking the town – it lists all the deaths since mining started in the area, the youngest was only 12 years old!

Replicas of cars from Mad Max II are dotted round the area 

A day was spent out at Silverton, a former silver mining town now a popular tourist spot as the movie Mad Max II was filmed in the area and many locals had minor roles. Over 100 movies and commercials have been made in the BH area. The old township has only a few well-spaced old sandstone buildings as less substantial houses were moved to Broken Hill or were only shacks and soon disappeared.

The rail museum is based at the old Silverton Tramway Station in Broken Hill. The tramway was a privately owned railway but could not be called a railway due to govt. regulations even though it ran huge W class locos right up into the 1970’s and carried passengers and freight from BH down to South Australian ports.



Another destination worth a mention was the Living Desert and the hill top sculptures created by visiting international artists from as far afield as Georgia, Mexico and the middle east.

From Broken Hill we took two days to get back into Victoria at Mildura. The most memorable thing about this drive was sharing my icecream with a cheeky grey miner bird who sat on my knee.