Today Dave and I travelled 2-up on Dave's bike (yes I was a big chook again not wanting to ride 26km return trip of uncertain dirt road!) to see an old silver mine near Silverton. The Daydream Silver mine is 20km from Broken Hill and operated from 1882 to 1897. It was a fascinating tour....the dryest dustiest countryside, with this old underground mine which was worked by about 150 Cornish miners in its day. These little men were called "cousin Jacks" and they must have had such hard working lives. We also saw where they lived in the surrounding bush; little dry stone walls roofed with bushes. A miner would sleep in the sitting position because of his consumptive lungs...poor blokes would often cough up blood because of the work they did. 12 hour shifts underground with a candle on a "spider" for light. Many of these men drank heavily, or smoked opium in pipes for the pain when they were above ground. Life was so hard I suppose anything to make things feel better.

Many of the miners in the days of mining around Broken Hill died early of terrible accidents, dust on the lungs, or lead poisoning.

We went underground at the old Daydream mine today, loaded up with miners lamps and batteries and helmets, which were more modern than the equipment the old miners used, and this was fascinating. Tiny dark little tunnels, stopes and long shafts, and how they had to break the rocks originally with just muscle power and picks amazes us today. Apparently the pay was pretty good for those days but a miner paid for this with an early death. The cemetary at Broken Hill has 60,000 graves we've been told! We will visit this cemetary this week. The official mining death toll for the area is about 900, but people here say that is really underestimated. Typhoid, dysentary and other illnesses killed a lot of people, as well as accidents.

What got to me today was hearing that 8 year old boys also worked at the Daydream mine in the 1880s. Poor little fellows had the job of sorting the ore; some working underground, and some in the hot sun up the top. They got 3 meals a day from a "mining mother" woman. Hey Kaleb, our 9 year old grandson, how about a life like that? I felt sad where these little boys worked when the tour guide showed us the place.

After our mine tour, we dined on the best home baked scones and a cuppa tea in the little old building on top of the mine. Then we headed off to the almost ghost town of Silverton, which is where the movie Mad Max was made, along with others, like Priscilla Queen of the Desert etc. We had a light beer (we were parched!) and a pie in the Silverton pub, then looked at a couple of galleries there.

Tomorrow we're off to do a 2 hour walking history tour of Broken Hill townsite with a local guide. We plan to leave for Mildura in a couple of days time, as we still want to see some more sites around here before we leave. So glad we came to Broken Hill!