Into Broken Hill

On Tuesday we left Mildura and drove the 300km to Broken Hill, also known as Silver City. As we approached Broken Hill we had to add 30 minutes to our watches; this is due to Broken Hill having a minor altercation with the NSW state government about some public service (or lack of) and deciding to follow central Australian time in protest when they weren't then allowed to 'leave' the rule of the state. As we approached Broken Hill, we could see lots of mini twisters in the distance picking up the red dust from the earth which was pretty cool.

We had a look around Broken Hill; famous for its silver mining. We also visited another old silver mining town, nearby Silverton. In 1889 the mines closed and its population (3000) moved to Broken Hill. Nowadays Silverton is a near-ghost town but there are a few artists resident here. The drive beyond Silverton was amazing as all of a sudden the landscape opened out into the extremely vast Mundi Mundi Plain. I swear we could just about see where the earth started to curve it was that vast.

It's just really bizarre to think of people living in this nice little town in the middle of nowhere in some quite inhospitable surroundings.