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.