10—15 Nov—Broken Hill, NSW
Today we arrived back into NSW – politically at least – Broken Hill operates on SA time and is more operationally connected to Adelaide than Sydney! We had a smooth drive up the Barrier Highway and Reen had her very first run with towing the CARDIS. She seemed to cope pretty well and all passengers survived.
We enjoyed Broken Hill, but felt it was very much a mixed bag. Some areas felt to be on the decline, while just down the road all seemed spick and span and vibrant. It’s probably the only caravan park we’ve ever seen/stayed at where we didn’t ever find anyone at the office: even check-in was by (email) pre-allocation of site number and touch-screen login! A little weird!
We visited the Information Centre which was a well set up location with lots of info. While in town we managed to see the Indian Pacific train at the station on it’s way east. We also visited a few food outlets for coffee or meals including the Line of Lode cafe, Old McLeod’s Bakery, Bell’s Milk Bar, Mac’s Oven Foods and KFC.
We enjoyed an adventure to Silverton and out around Mundi Mundi plains and the Umberumberka reservoir; the Mad Max references everywhere around town would have movie buff’s in raptures. The donkeys have run of the town and like to meet the people. The historic building are mostly all in great condition and being used.
The relatively new Line of Lode Miners Memorial was a respectful and sobering reminder of the risks of that line of work, set in beaut location overlooking the town. At the Silver City Mint and Art Centre we marvelled at the ‘Big Picture’ which is the world’s largest acryllic painting by a single artist, 100m long and over 12m high and painted by Peter Anderson, a local artist. On our last day there we went to the Pro Hart gallery—he was obviously a well-respected and loved local figure with a remarkably diverse artistic output.
See also 2025 “Morisset to Tumby Bay, SA to Granville” trip.
