Exploring Broken Hill

We started the day with a visit to the Pro Hart Gallery which was fantastic as expected, what an extraordinary man. We loved his 4 Rolls Royce cars in his front yard.

Next to the Line of Lode Site, The Big Chair and the Miners Memorial - all of which were closed indefinately due to an Insurance dispute with the leasee of the Mining Lease - too bad for us, so sad to have missed one of the main highlights of broken Hill.  Never mind - onwards to the White Rocks Historical Site, a memorial to The Battle of Broken Hill, the site of the only conflict on Australian soil during The First World War, where a picnic train full of people was attacked and 4 people were killed and several injured. The attackers were 2 local men of (what is now known as) Pakistan descent in support of the Turks under attack by Australian soldiers.

Next to the Syndicate of Seven Busts, The Syndicate of Seven was the name given to the original seven members of the  Broken Hill Mining Company formed in 1883, who lodged the original mining leases.

Next we walked the main street to view the amazing murals which depict historical and current events and can be seen on many of the buildings in Argent St.

Then it was off to Silverton, approx 30ks out to the famous Silverton Hotel for lunch. We ordered and then we talked Laurie into taking 'The Silverton Test' - (Google it) which he did, and he was such a good sport with it and we all had a good laugh at his expense. But he did get a certificate for his effort.

Next we headed up the hill to the Mad Max Museum, which had closed for a couple of weeks, our luck again, but we could see a few of the cars and some other memorabilia.

Back into town to Sturt Park where there is a Titanic Memorial, which we thought was a bit out of place up here, so we needed to check that out, it turned out it was funded by the local musicians as a memorial to the bandsmen on the Titanic who continued playing their music while the ship was sinking and therefore they were all lost, quite a moving story.

And the last stop of the day was the Silver City Art Centre and Mint which houses the longest painting on canvas in the world.  It was quite a site, the centre had been purposely built to display the work. Set in a natural style setting with red dirt and all, it was quite spectacular.

Back to the caravan park only to discover  a dust storm had gone through, and silly us had left the windows open and everything was covered in lovely red dust - so we just sat down and had a nice cup of tea.