BROKEN HILL

 
 
 
 

On our travels to Broken Hill we stopped at Petersborough – known for its old steam trains. We had a quick stop here – just enough time for a coffee, scroll and finger buns! The kids had some time playing on the old Steam Train before we bundled back in car and headed into Broken Hill.

A movie of ‘The Wild’ helped us get through the next 5 ½ hours until we reached our destination. Broken Hill (even though it is in NSW) still runs on SA time, so after this port of call we will change our clocks again. We haven’t seen much road kill for the past few weeks. The earth is still red with plenty of Spinifex.

Broken Hill is known as the Silver City and was given it’s name by Charles Sturt, who was trying to find an inland sea and referred to a ‘Broken Hill’ in his diary. Within this region there are many museums, exhibitions, underground mines and notable buildings.

We had a quiet first afternoon – playing Scrabble and computer games while Ben went for a run (in preparation for the City to Surf coming up in a few weeks time).

Day 2:
We decided to firstly head into the information centre to work out what we would do for the day (and yes, we got a coffee!) Our first stop was the Silver City Mint and Art Centre.

There was an extensive range of painting from Australian artists, minerals on display, smelting, casting and manufacturing of silver jewellery, the world’s largest acrylic painting on canvas (12 m x 100m) and of course the children’s favourite – the Broken Hill Chocolate Factory (fudge for all!)

We then proceeded to the Living Desert Sculpture Site where in 1993, 12 sculptures went to a reserve on the edge of the desert where each worked on a sandstone boulder up to 3m high. The raw rock has been transformed into various shapes and figures. Entry is by car and a key from the information centre is required to open gates on the way to see the Sculpture.

After our sight seeing, we drove to the Pro Hart gallery which was a very interesting place. It was a real insight into the man, and the reasons behind his artwork. It was wonderful to be able to share this experience with the children and to point out the techniques and see Australian history within his artwork. Yes, there was even the carpet with the dragon fly picture on it - remember the T.V. ad for a carpet cleaner and the cleaning lady who said ‘Mr Hart… what a mess!’

This afternoon we went to an old time soda bar – black and white chequered tiles on the floor, 20 flavours of soda to choose from, waffles and apple pie, old tables and chairs etc. We thoroughly enjoyed stepping back in time and drinking crème soda, ice cream and ice. Lauren wasn’t too keen on the drinks (not a real fan of sweet drinks or milk shakes) so she settled for a chocolate instead.

The evening was spent playing Skipbo then squirming down under the sleeping bag for a sleep. (This caravan park is still on the highway, so we have learned to look carefully at maps in the future to determine how close they are to a highway as the semi trailers at night don’t make for consistent sleep).