Broken Hill

Wow, this town is much bigger than we expected although quite deserted at the moment. Traditionally it closed down for 3-4 weeks when the mines closed down over the Christmas/New Year period, although now the mines don't close but alot of the pubs, shops etc still do. There are some gorgeous, huge pubs here and they are closed unfortunately. We have visited the Mint and Chocolate Shop which houses the world's largest canvas painting - 100m long, 12m high, took 2.5 years and 9 tonnes of paint to complete...it is going into The Guiness Book of Records this year...Pro Hart's Gallery was awesome also, I didn't realise he was a miner from Broken Hill. Visited the miners memorial which is on top of the old BHP reject hill - quite sad as it lists how they died eg: fell down shaft, crushed by cage, rockfall etc. We trekked up to the Sculpture Symposium at sunset which was outstanding. Did a 1/2 day tour to Silverton (15kms out of Broken Hill) with Milton our tour guide who had lived here since he was 3 years old and knew everything about the place...Silverton was the original mining town before everyone moved into Broken Hill, it's pretty much a tourist point-of-interest now with a population of only 39. It has a fantastic museum in the old gaol, a few art galleries, the Mad Max museum and a pub.Read more