Day 11 - Broken Hill/Silverton

Today is our Tourist day, off to Silverton which is 32km from Broken Hill. Went to a Lookout where you can see across all the open plains surrounding the lookout right up to the hills with Wind Turbines, we were shocked to see them out there.

Silverton is a lovely mining town preserved beautifully, the town is purely for tourism now - it used to be a thriving Silver Mine. Speaking of mines...we went underground, rough going, luckily we had to wear hardhats as I would be bruised all over my head from hitting the roof. The guide was very informative above ground, some of his talk underground wasn't possible to hear, we had a group of 25 ppl so he couldn't get everyone in the one spot until we entered a cave section near the end. We had to turn all our head lamps off to experience the complete darkness that the miners worked in, including the 8 year old kids who worked down there moving rocks. Average life expectancy was 42.

After Mine tour went to the Silverton Hotel for lunch, was good atmosphere, run by Irish Backpackers, nice food, authentic old pub, lots of memorabilia around the walls. Then off to the Mad Max Museum, creepy dude to greet us as we walked through the door, his welcoming speach was "no photo's inside, $15 dollars". Once inside we were overwhelmed with photo's from floor to ceiling and then across the ceiling, plus lots of props from the Movies including scripts, private photo's from behind the scenes - unfortunately no photo's so can't remember much....so many photos. Then we went out the back where all the cars, bikes, Stork's Giro Copter, trucks and dummies dressed in theme - here we were allowed to take photo's. Will post some but will send heaps to Alex to show the boys, they were very excited to see the Mad Max stuff.

Left there and drove to the Gaol, didn't go in but took some photo's of it and other buildings around town. When we were at the mine we asked if they were still mining and he smiled and said they make more money from Tourism than mining these days. Part of that is the admission $33 ea but the rest is the hard sell for Tea and Scones at $8.60 pp for scones only. She was horrified when I told her we didn't want either.

Back to the Van, Wayne having Poppy nap, I went for a walk and took photo's of the lovely Primary School down the street. Chilly night so off for a hot shower and then some planning for tomorrows site seeing around Broken Hill.Read more