Broken Hill - Just Brilliant

Broken Hill is a mining town founded in the 1880’s after iron ore was found and proclaimed itself the saviour of South Australia. The town was established and still flourishes.  Miners poured in from Britain, Chinese market gardeners came, and Afghan cameleers arrived.

It is a fascinating place and I would recommend anyone to visit.  I was just overwhelmed at the conditioned all these people worked in, and the heat, it must have been awful.  It is also a town with a history of strong trade unionism.

Today we went all over the place.  It is here that the Royal Flying Doctor Service started in about 1927.  Originally it was nurses riding out to regions to give simple medical help, then came the planes and our whole morning at the airfield was just fascinating.  Some of the regions ad stations they have to fly too are seriously remote,  I can’t image the number off people who died of quite treatable illness before this service – it really got to me.

We also saw the School of the Air, where they brought lesions to children on remote stations, and  covered over one million square miles.  Originally it was done over the radio, now done by satellite linked internet.  I can’t imagine was it  is like to live on one of those stations, and what they managed to do is just indescribable.

 Right in the centre of Broken Hill is a huge spoil heap from the mining called ‘The Line of Load.  We drove to the top where there is a Miner Memorial.  Over 700 miners have died at site since the operation started.  It was horrific to read some of the deaths.  Thankfully  now most of them can be prevented by simple health and safety.  The original seven men who bought the rights to the mine were made millionaires, but I didn’t get the impression that many of the miners made much money.  Still the case me thinks.

Memorial to 700 dead miners at Broken Hill - the last was 2007

There is a fabulous place 9kms outside of Broken Hill called the Living Desert.  It is a set of massive sandstone sculptures, carved by artists from around the world, which sit on a hill looking out over the desert.  They were created to celebrate the region’s powerful connection between art and environment.  It created a mega sanctuary and was very moving,and beautiful place to be, especially as we were the only people there.

25kms north west from Broken Hill is Silverton. Well what can we say about Silverton, it was the original mining town before Broken Hill was established, it is like something out of a wild est movie, and has been used as the the film set of choice.  Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Mad Max to name two.  It has a MadMax Museum.   Bizarre and wonderful, we loved it.

Main Street out of town

Mad Max and the famous chase scene road - Mundi Mundi

The local wild life on the way back to Broken Hill

We just spent the rest of day around Broken Hill.  Lots of art galleries, a railway centre, geological museum and of course mining history.  It is a thoroughly fascinating place and we would have liked to have stayed longer, but again it is time to move on.