Thursday 28^th June

Today the small town of Silverton was our designated destination.  We also had been told not to miss the Mundi Mundi lookout where on a clear day one is supposed to be able to see the curvature of the earth, however the earth didn’t seem to curve for me at all.  The reservoir known as Umberumberka is used as a backup water supply for Broken Hill and I was amused at the plaque indicating the designer was drowned in Sydney Harbour.

As a tourist we find we keep bumping into the same people at different locations and today was no exception. Two cars were our constant companions throughout the day – and its always pleasant to connect with fellow travellers and chat about what we see.  We also ran into a couple we had met last Saturday on our trip to Lake Mungo, so we are hoping to share a meal with them during their stay in Broken Hill.

Silverton has a population of less than 60 people but it is far from being a ‘ghost town’. As the roads have never been sealed it still looks like a town from early last century, so it has been used as a television and movie location  - think A Town Like Alice and Mad Max 2. 

We visited the pub which was full of eclectic bits and pieces such as a beer can collection, loads of sayings on cardboard hanging from the ceiling, a number of photo albums and collections of newspapers which contained stories about Silverton.

As we drove past the building which used to house the Municipal Chambers we were amused at the living equine guard employed!!

Our final destination (not literally) was the historic cemetery.  This was unlike any we have seen so far as it seemed to be a hotchpotch of graves in no order or denomination.  The poignant human stories were evident from the headstones, a father dying at 62 within about 4 years of losing his 4 sons whose ages ranged from 27 down to 4.

27^th June

This morning we met a delightful tour guide Daphne Coffey who led a group of us through the streets of Broken Hill for two hours.  She was sprightly, extremely knowledgeable on all aspects of the history of Broken Hill as well as the current mining climate and was at a pinch 78-80 years old.  I was mesmerized by her beautiful green eyes.  A woman in our group commented how well she led us and my response was that besides being all of the above she was a true inspiration and a person who is an example of keeping both body and mind active.

We were shown through a park with one of the late artist Pro Hart’s sculptures of an ant.  His interpretation was that the miners of Broken Hill work like ants underground.

The union industry was the cornerstone for the miners and we looked into a grand building known as Trades Hall. The history of Broken Hill was marked with bitter and protracted strikes, and this building was the focal point of these strikes.  The 1919 strike lasted 18 months and led to the 35 hour week for miners and improved health and safety conditions.  I was very impressed with this beautiful stained glass window gracing the top of the entrance door.

We had been told about White’s Mineral Art and Mining Museum and that it was a “must see”, so we got the bikes out and cycled up to the other end of town to find this place.  It turns out that Kevin "Bushy" White and his wife were given some mine timber and he used this to build White's Mineral Art and Living Mining Museum. 

In fact he took over the back yard as neither of them enjoyed mowing the lawn or gardening, so now a visit to the museum takes you on an illustrated journey through the architectural and mining history of the city. 

Bushy's mineral paintings are complimented with many rare mining artefacts, underground memorabilia and models of mine sites, while his wife has used the back porch area to set up a home for her handmade doll and teddy bear collection.

Tuesday 26^th June

The large hill staring down over Broken Hill is known as the Line of Lode and standing atop the line of lode is the Miner's Memorial which honours the people who have died working to make Broken Hill what it is today.

With over 700 people memorialised at the site it is a stark reminder of the fact that more people have died working the mine's in Broken Hill than Australian soldiers died in the Vietnam War. Master John Vaughan, who died at the age of 14 in the late 1800's, is the youngest person who has died on a Broken Hill mine site. Along with the date of death and age of each person memorialised is a brief description of how they were killed. This includes phrases such as 'run over by wagon', 'premature explosion', 'drowned in a well', 'fell off scaffolding' and 'crushed by boiler'. The memorial serves to personalise the tragic loss mine employee's families sometimes suffered because of their line of work and honours the memory of those that have died.
Upon this same hill is a large park bench.  The designer of this bench wanted adults to experience what a child feels as they sit here.  Bob looks quite small!!

Sturt Park has a memorial to the musicians from the Titanic, so inspired by curiousity we drove to find this particular park. 

Along with  this memorial which was the broken column, indicating "life cut short" surrounded by a rose garden, we found this wonderful fig tree which also merits recognition.  

Bob asked one of the council employees about it and he confirmed it had come from South Africa and was over 130 years old. 
 During the Christmas period fairy lights are illuminated, and I imagine it would be a remarkable sight.

During the opening of an art show back in the 1990’s a Gosford based sculptor, Lawrence Beck proposed to the Mayor of Broken Hill that sculptures would enhance the city. At the same time the Council was developing a reserve on the outskirts of the city, and today the two sit side by side.

This area is known as The Broken Hill Sculptures and Living Desert Sanctuary and is about 10km from the city.

Sculptors from many countries spent time working on sandstone brought in from near Wilcannia and today, twelve of these sculptures dominate the hill.  We certainly needed to read the interpretive boards accompanying each one as some were quite abstract, and we decided we didn’t need to transport any of them home to grace our own back garden.

A good hilly climb followed as we enjoyed the culture walk trail.  Some of the features were this lovely Sturt Desert Pea bush, a group of simulated Aboriginal shelters, 

story poles carved from red river gum by Aboriginal students 

and clay models of prospectors near a simulated mine.

We attended the Melbourne Comedy Festival Roadshow and found ourselves laughing along with the audience at some of the comedians. They all brought their own style and were diverse in their  stand-up content.  Thankyou radio 999 ABC Broken Hill for the complimentary tickets!!

Monday 25^th June

Broken Hill here we come!!  Our trip was only a short 140 km from our campsite last night on Lake Popiltah.  I lit a lovely campfire and we sat around it chatting and enjoying the bright stars for quite some time – well until it was bedtime.

En route to Broken Hill the landscape was very flat with very little undulation at all.  Some of the wildlife included feral goats and emus.

We listen to ABC radio when reception is clear and this morning the announcer was interviewing Cal Wilson, a comedienne who was promoting the Melbourne Comedy Festival’s one night roadshow in Broken Hill.  Following this interview a competition was announced asking for people to identify the MC for the night to win a double pass to see the show.  I looked at the mobile phone and it had no service, so waited a few seconds until a bar or two showed.  I told Bob I was going to win some tickets for us.  Wouldn’t you know I got straight through to Broken Hill ABC, answered the question and got 2 x $45 tickets for Tuesday night!!

First port of call the Tourist Information centre, so we came away armed with brochures and pamphlets on attractions.  We have booked into a caravan park as there is very little camping within any distance from town. 

The Royal Flying Doctor Service has their biggest Australian base at the airport with a wonderful new building.  Within we found interpretive displays giving a very good overview of the origins and developments of the RFDS.  We also watched a film and took a guided tour. For a Monday and not school holidays there were at least 25 people in the tour group – I think Broken Hill maybe a magnet for tourists.

We had heard about a milk bar still living in the 50’s, serving spiders, ice cream sundaes and all varieties of milk shakes – without the 50’s prices I must say.  Our two large malted shakes were $14.50!!  Maybe they are current prices but as we never buy them we don’t know any different.  Nevertheless it was quirky and took us both on a nostalgia trip.  We noticed that the Niagara Café in Gundagai rated a few mentions as well as copies of their menu.

 They even had magazines from the 50’s laminated and available to read whilst enjoying the milkshake.

 I browsed a “New Idea” from 1953 and read all about the Duke of Edinburgh’s mother, Princess Alice (for those who are not aware she founded a nursing order of nuns known as “The Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary” in Greece after the war and devoted her life to charity work).

Sunday 24^th June

Today we packed up and left Mildura with the intention of only travelling about 150km to the next camp spot. This allowed us plenty of time to explore Wentworth, which is only about 30 km from Mildura.

First stop was the information office. Again, a very helpful staff member gave us instructions and diagrams to reach those places which she had determined would interest us.  I appreciate how she took the time to listen to what would have appealed to us and what she could dismiss as unimportant to us.

Wentworth is famous for a few reasons.  Firstly it is the confluence of the Murray and Darling rivers, so while looking at the one body of water, in fact a “corner” which looks like an upturned large tree root is the dividing line.  

The Ferguson tractor gained its place in history and locals hearts during the 1956 floods, so is immortalized in at least three places, on a pole within Fotherby Park, on a Cairn in the centre of Wentworth and as a floral/shrub display on a bank near the river. 

Finally, but possibly only in our ranking are the Perry Sandhills which provide a bit of a “wow” factor and a playground for the young and young at heart. According to geologists, the Perry Sandhills originated after an ice age (40,000 years ago) and are formed by wind erosion over thousands of years. The dunes are located just outside of Wentworth (6km from PO), and are a unique land formation of 400 acres of continuously shifting sand dunes.  They are used as a backdrop in many films and TV shows.

There was a lovely brass monument to an icon of the region a nomadic recluse or hermit called David James Jones, but better known as “Possum”. Sometimes the local landowners would catch a fleeting glimpse of a man in the bush but for many years they didn't know who he was or where he'd come from. David James Jones came to this part of Australia just prior to the Depression as a non-union shearer from New Zealand. At the time he didn't have a shearer's ticket so he couldn't get a job. Nobody would employ him and because he couldn't get a job he couldn't get money to buy a ticket either. So it was a never-ending cycle. He eventually decided to shun society entirely and he lived along the river basically between Renmark and Mildura for about fifty years.  The station owners would find things done. The would come out and find that the sheep had been crutched, the fences repaired or their wood had been cut... but none of their staff had done it. Sometimes he'd be spotted up a tree in search of bush tucker and so the name Possum stuck. Over the years, Possum came to know the River Murray better than anyone.

Our next stop was to see an exhibition of wooden artifacts made from “sweat boxes”, which are a standard box used to transport dried fruit from the vineyard drying ground to the packing shed for processing. Just a few of the categories include Sculpture, Furniture and Toys.

Saturday 23^rd June

Today we booked a guided tour to the Mungo National Park with a company which specializes in the region.  The National Park and the Mungo Lake lie within the Willandra Lakes Region World Heritage Area and were unfamiliar to us before our trip, however we learned that there is evidence of around 40,000 years of human occupation within the Willandra Lakes area. The lakes dried 18,000 years ago, and dating of ancient burials shows that these are the oldest known fully modern humans outside of Africa.  In fact, this is the site of the oldest recorded cremation in the world of Mungo woman and the burial site of Mungo man, discovered only about 45 years ago.

Part of the lake is bordered by what are known as the ‘Walls of China”, a 30km wall of clay and sand which moves according to the winds and rain.  It was like nothing we have ever seen before and certainly added a dimension to our photography collection for the day.  The mounds and hills are built up purely around vegetation and roots of trees.  We saw evidence of sea shells and cooking pits – hard to get the head around the fact they had been there for so many thousands of years.

Thursday 21^st June

The Tourist Information office here in Mildura is one of the best we have seen so far, and the staff were extremely helpful in giving us brochures to match our interests.  Besides getting brochures there is a theaterette which shows a couple of short films on the history of Mildura so after watching them we looked over the displays featured within the information centre.

As many of you know Bob is an avid collector of razors, so there was a brochure which listed all the collectable/antique shops in a radius of about 15km of Mildura, so besides looking for that ever elusive razor to jump off the shelf into Bob’s hands, the trip served another purpose of giving us a better idea of the layout of the place.  What was evident is the complete flatness of the countryside, and the abundance of both grapevines and orange orchards.  Many market gardeners also have those little roadside stalls with the accompanying “honesty box” and they sold a few vegetables and all the citrus fruits.

Friday 22^nd June

One of the brochures was a self guided walking tour of the “art-deco” buildings in Mildura.  We found out that today was the coldest day in Mildura for 17 years – the top was about 10 degrees, however undaunted we rugged up and followed the map to tick off all the nominated buildings.  Apparently Art-Deco was first introduced to the world from the 1925 Exposition International des Arts Decoratifs et Industries Moderne held in Paris, however the term wasn’t popularized until the 1960’s.  The buildings are characterized by linear decorative designs emphasizing long, thin forms, curved surfaces and geometric patterns. This architectural style emerged in Australia between the First and Second World Wars.

We particularly liked the former Commercial Bank of Australia, the T & G building as well as Etherington’s Jewellers – the door being a very attractive feature.

Following our walk we followed by car the “Chaffey Trail”.  Of course the name reflects someone who had an influence on Mildura, and they were the Chaffey brothers from USA.  Way back in 1858 George and William Benamin Chaffey were developing an irrigation settlement in Ontario, California. Victorian Cabinet Minister, Alfred Deakin (later to serve 3 terms as Prime Minister) was appointed by the Victorian Parliament to visit America on a fact finding mission, met the Chaffeys and enticed them to come to Australia to develop a series of steam-driven pumps to lift the water from the Murray River to various heights to irrigate up to 33,000 acres. Nobody with these credentials would live in a place without leaving a homestead and house for future generations to view, so these were on our list to see. 

The Chaffeys vision and desire to have water permanently accessible for irrigation and river transport was fulfilled through a series of locks and weirs constructed along the Murray, of which Lock 11 is at Mildura.  We stood for about 15-20 minutes watching the paddle steamer Rothbury come towards the lock and it appeared to be about 10 metres above the waterline.  After being locked in the lock, the water is pumped out so that the paddle steamer is now sitting in water level with the river it is about to enter, the gates open and the paddle steamer emerges.  I needed to stand there and take photos to get the concept – now I understand.

Tuesday 19^th June

Today we farewelled Hay and pointed our compass toward Balranald, where we had been told about a good camping spot.  The people on the road whom you meet are all very willing to share all kinds of information, such as the cheapest diesel in the direction we are headed to places to eat and stay.  After looking at the spot we felt it was a bit isolated and would not offer anything much to see and do for the rest of the day.  There were numerous cotton bales surrounded in yellow coats all in very neat rows in quite a few paddocks along the road.

We took our lunch break in Balranald, took a photo or two of these frogs sawing a large river red gum and noticed other spots in town that the frog must be their adopted mascot.  I was amused to see a “house in motion”.  This home was being moved a few blocks away and came complete with venetian blinds.  The men doing the job said it would only take them 2 days to remove and re-locate it.

We use what is known as “The Bible” for camping/caravanning Camp’s 6 book, and we found a spot named Lake Benanee, which offered large turning areas, a lakefront vista and looked suitable for an overnight stay.  Before long another 6 or so vans joined us, so we met most of the other folk (the ones closest to us from Canberra!!) and enjoyed both the sunrise, the starlit sky and the beautiful sunrise this morning.

On then to Mildura where we needed to buy some THORN RESISTANT bicycle tubes as we are now up to about 6 punctures between us and purchased a new microwave as the other one is kaput. All that completed and we are now in a caravan park for the next 3 nights to allow us to take our time here and see what the place has in store. 

 Monday 18^th June

Today we re-visited the banks of the Murrumbidgee so that I could take a few photos which we missed.  They were of the bridge pylons which had been painted in indigenous themes said to prevent them being graffitied – and it seems to have worked.

There were two other notable places of interest we saw in the Hay tourist magazine, being the former gaol and a historic house and heritage rose gardens, known as Bishop’s Lodge.

The gaol was located a good walk out of town, so we laced up the walking shoes and headed to see if it offered anything different from other gaols.  It was one of those places that had used each of the 14 cells to demonstrate a part of the history. An apologetic note at the entrance told us to forgive the dust on everything as the drought was relentless in depositing it, and to keep disturbing the “objects d’art” by cleaning them would make them more fragile.  I’m really not sure if the drought has indeed ended, but there are no dusters in sight.

We walked around for about 10 minutes before she “found us”.  An elderly volunteer committee member was keen to give us her version of the gaol and  I found it really difficult to kindly extricate myself from her, so I pointed her in Bob’s direction, so that I could continue reading the information in which I was interested.  In a timeline this building was built in 1878 and has been used as a gaol, maternity hospital, lock hospital for the insane, compound for prisoners of war during the Second World War and finally as a maximum security institute for girls under the Child Welfare Department.  This ceased to operate in 1974.

Bishop’s Lodge is a remarkable iron building constructed in 889 as the official residence for the Anglican Bishop of Riverina.  Owned by the Anglican Diocese until 1946, the Lodge was home to the first three bishops then between 1935 and 1946 became the Linton House hostel for boys attending the local high school.  From 1946 until its sale to the Shire Council in 1985 it had been private residence.

What was remarkable about this building is the technology used to build it.  Because Hay is subject to high temperatures, the 115 square house has 45 squares of verandah.  Low window sills on double hung windows with boxed counter weights allow for the windows to be opened low down or high up to better the inflow of cool air from the verandahs and the outflow of hot air from the rooms.  There were a few other significant ventilating features which were as relevant back then as we are trying to make them today – what is old is new again!!

The laundry featured a chip heater which Bob fondly remembered from his boyhood bathroom in Cooma.

When we returned to Sandy Point camp spot we were joined by at least 16 other vans. Happy Hour – and more- was spent around a roaring camp fire with the members of the Australian Caravan Club.  This group were travelling to Longreach on a “muster” - they were certainly an experienced bunch and we have come away with lots of hints about campsites, places to walk in the Flinders Ranges and the good and bad caravan parks on our route.