17 September 2012 - Silverland Caravan Park, Broken Hill, NSW

Chris challenged me to a game of Scrabble again last night, to give me an opportunity for revenge, so he said. He won. But the joyful event of the evening was not his winning but the whistling birds who sang late into the night immediately adjacent to the caravan. We initially thought they were taken with Pavarotti but they seemed just as excited with Cat Stevens, so there is no revelation regarding the musical tastes of Australian birds here.

This morning the caravans soon started to head off, some for Cobar and some on to Broken Hill as we were. The day had dawned with clear skies and no hint of the brief rain that had passed yesterday. And so we headed away also to cover the last leg on to Broken Hill.

The route passed over land even flatter than the days before, flocks of emus outnumbering the sheep, goats and cattle. Within fifty kilometres of Broken Hill, the land was so flat that distant trees and hills appeared to be levitating; the illusion caused by yesterday’s rain vapour rising from the sand coloured landscape.

Soon we came to signs forewarning of the quarantine border, clearly indicating the penalties for falling foul of restrictions; up to $11,000 or spot fines of $200. Personally I would have elected for the latter. Bins inviting fruit and tomatoes to be dumped were well placed along the highway but there was no check point. I was however glad that we had done the right thing, having processing all stocks of fruit and vegetables.

I was disappointed however to find we needed to put our watches back by half an hour to Central time. This is all very confusing when it comes to checking out the television programme in the newspaper which comes from the eastern time zone. Still, you would think I would be well used to that by now.

The last few kilometres east of the city wound through low hills, these once a huge pastoral paddock called Broken Hill. And then in front were great mullock heaps and mountains of slag, towering above this shrinking town, currently with a population of 19,000 and amenities for 33,000.

Dwarfed by the expansive landscape

At the Information Centre, we confirmed the caravan parks in town and chose this one advertised as the cheapest. It is also advertised in Camps 6. The chap at the Centre suggested that the tariffs might be a little out of date; they might be as much as $4 more. He was wrong; the tariff here is now $25, not the 2012 advertised $18. However this, particularly with the CMCA discount, is quite acceptable. The problem we had with the camp was identifying the entrance to the park.  This caravan park is one of the simplest commercial operations we have encountered on our travels apart from those up Cape York. An expanse of dirt, with few trees, but it has water, electricity and grey water discharge points. The laundry has modern machines, the clothes lines are upright and there is a swimming pool if we were inclined to swim.

Broken Hill's memorial to miners

After lunch and a load of washing on the line, we headed back into town and up to the lookout above the town situated on the site of the original Broken Hill Mine. Here on the massive mullock heap is the memorial to miners, an impressive structure constructed very early this century to remember the seven hundred or so miners who have lost their lives during Broken Hill’s mining history. Not only are the views from the lookout impressive, the memorial itself is quite moving and informative, listing the miners names under a year heading, the actual date and cause of death.

From here we returned to the Information Centre and watched a promotional film about the area and then sought out the shopping centre out of interest, before returning to camp to attend to domestic matters and plan the days ahead here in Broken Hill