Day 14

I can't believe we have already been away for a fortnight. How time flies when you are having fun.
It was very windy here last night and most of today. This kept the temperatures down to about 22*C most of the day.
Broken Hill, known as the "Silver City" because of it's rich silver deposits, was the birthplace of BHP in 1885 after the discovery of silver, lead & zinc.




About 12 kms out of Broken Hill is what is called the Living Desert. In the right season this is covered with wild flowers, however they aren't in flower at this time of the year. What it is also best known for is a collection of twelve large sandstone sculptures created by artists from all over the world.













From here we travelled to Silverton, once a silver mining town, but now known as the Hollywood of the outback, as it has been the set for many movies including Mad Max, Mission Impossible 2, Prisilla, Queen of the Desert. The church below was used for the wedding of Bryan Brown & Helen Morse in "A Town Like Alice".




There are many beautiful old building here restored and used for galleries, cafes and museums.




The scenic drive to Silverton shows the rich red soil......






As well as camels and donkeys close to the road.








This is the cafe. It is full of memorabilia, a variety of antiques including hundreds of dolls, old bottles and artifacts. We enjoyed a lovely afternoon tea here.







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Location:Broken Hill

Day 13

We woke up this morning to lovely clear skies at White Cliffs, a pleasant change. After Peter took some early morning photos of the solar electricity generators we hit the road once again.




These views below are as we left White Cliffs.







Further up the road Peter spotted a wedge tail eagle.



We also stopped to photograph one of many lizards warming themselves on the road.


We drove back to Wilcannia, then headed west along the Barrier highway to Broken Hill. One of our travel books describes the scenery as "arid and featureless, with the highway carving a predominate straight line through the landscape". This description is very true.



We arrived in Broken Hill late this afternoon. After setting up the van, doing some shopping, 3 loads of washing and cooking dinner we haven't seen a lot of the town. We will do that over the next couple of days.

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Location:Broken Hill

Day 12

We left Cobar early this morning, travelling on the Barrier Highway, 260 kms to Wilcannia, then 95kms north to White Cliffs. The road was very flat and sometimes we could see the road straight ahead to the horizon. There was a fair bit of wild life as we drove along ranging from dozens of small lizards on the road, to wild goats, huge wedge tail eagles, kangaroos and the odd emu.



It is very quiet here today, but apparently from November till about March it is quiet because it is too hot. We are lucky as it is only about 23*C. Not a lot to do here but Peter is still trying to find his fortune. These are some pieces of opal Peter found just around the van in the caravan park. The opal here is very translucent with some beautiful pale mauve, green & blue colours in it.


White Cliffs is an opal mining settlement. Because of the heat, the houses, shops and motels are all underground. This is one of the underground galleries we went in to. It was originally an opal mine.


This is the gallery from the outside.


The landscape is sometimes described as "moonscape scenery"



We have come across some interesting signs.








This is the Anglican church at White Cliffs, all handmade from stone gathered from the area.




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Location:White Cliffs

Day 11 Saturday 28th January

We left Bourke this morning with it still raining and had some breaks in the rain on the way to Cobar, a 170 km drive. We were going to go to White Cliffs north of Wilcannia but it is a fairly long drive and we didn't set off till 10am. There were lots to see in Cobar so made it our overnight stopover.


Cobar is famous for it's copper mining which began in 1870. It became the largest copper mine in Australia. Silver, lead and zinc are all produced from these mines today, and there has been gold sourced from these areas as well.
From the lookout just out of town, we got a spectacular view of the New Cobar Open Cut Gold Mine.








The Heritage Park has a collection of old Mining equipment as well as a sculpture of a miner at work.












There are many old buildings in Cobar. The one that stands out as you drive into town is the Catholic Church, and can be seen from almost anywhere. We went to mass there tonight.







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Location:Cobar

Day 10

This morning we checked out the touristy things around Bourke. There is a large Information and Exhibition centre where Peter took lots of photos (and I took a couple too).







Bourke is situated on the banks of the Darling River, and in the late 1800's was a thriving town for the wool, cotton and citrus industries. Wool was transported down the Darling to the Murray River, then onto Adelaide. There were up to 80 riverboats servicing the region. One of the paddle steamers was the PV JANDRA. Strangely enough the river has too much water in it at the moment for the replica of it to be in service. However I thought this photo was appropriate.








North Bourke Bridge was the first lift bridge over the Darling. It was built in England, then brought up the river in sections. It was quite muddy down along the river banks as the water has been fairly high here recently, so I couldn't get real close to it for a side on view.





This is another view of the Darling River from the wharf near town.



It is almost 5pm and we are just having our 3rd storm since lunch time. Luckily none of them have been vicious, but there is a bit more thunder and lightning in this one. Just as long as there is no wind to shake the van around. This one has lasted longer with much more rain. There are forecasts for flooding on the Darling at Bourke, so hope we can leave here tomorrow.

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Location:Bourke

Day 9

We left Lightning Ridge this morning and travelled 321kms to Bourke. There's not a lot to see along the way, with the landscape very flat.



The road is fairly good most of the time, although because there has been a fair bit of rain in these areas, the sides of the roads are a bit damaged. Today being Australia Day it was very quiet on the road. There was a large harvester taking up most of the road.




We drove through Brewarrina, a small town, and there was no one around and everything shut. It's not like Brisbane with everything open on a public holiday. It's very quiet in Bourke as well. There is only one other van in the caravan park- perhaps more will arrive later.



We will a bit of sightseeing tomorrow.





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Location:Bourke

Day 7 photos

These were the photos I tried to send yesterday.
We found some interesting things between Narrabri & Lightning Ridge.
Peter saw this sign at the local pub at Burren Junction, half way between Narrabri & here.



Peter thought he would check it out but unfortunately it wasn't open at the time.
There was also several emus (and kangaroos) as you would probably expect out here.



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Location:Lightning Ridge

Day 8

This morning we went on an interesting tour to an underground mine shaft. Lightning ridge is known for the Black opal, the only place in Australia where they are found and very rare around the world. It is recognised as the most rare and valuable opal around the world.
An artist is doing carvings along all the walkways 11 meters underground.


There are some quite spectacular carvings and very diverse- from the Last Supper, to the Simpsons, to politicians, super heroes, animals, you name it he's carved it. The walls are very soft sandstone so they are easy to carve.



After lunch we went back out the the area and Peter tried to find his fortune. Hasn't quite found it yet, but did findsome tiny pieces of opal.







With all the rain they have had out here the last few days there was some water over the road. A rare sight around these normally dry parched lands.



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Location:Lightning Ridge