Day 132 – 135 - Broken Hill

The plan was to stop a night or two in Mildura at the Kings Billabong on our way to Broken Hill, but as it turned out the water in the billabong was at its highest level and all camping spots were closed. Instead we continued north, almost all the way to Broken Hill (minus a quick overnight stop at a rest place along the road).

Once in Broken Hill, the first thing we noticed was the temperature – it was indeed MUCH HOTTER than in Grampians. The temperature had in fact increased with at 15-20 degrees during our eight hour drive.

There’s a nice Visitor Centre in Broken Hill and we got heaps of information of what we could do in this outback town and we filled our two nights / three days with things to do easily. One cool thing we saw was The Big Picture at the Silver City Mint & Art Centre. The picture is 100m long and 12m high, and it’s the world’s largest acrylic painting on canvas made by one artist. Unfortunatly, we were not allowed to take a picture of The Big Picture… but we can promise you it was BIG, and impressive, too.

We also did a guided tour through the Dreamtime Silver Mine and got to go around 30m down in the mine. The narrow shafts and low celeings make you realise what it must have been like working in there back in the days.

We also visited the not-to-be-missed Mad Max 2 museum in the little historic town Silverton (the movie was filmed here), about 40 minutes from Broken Hill. A pretty cool museum, but even more so a pretty cool outback scenery!

Also, just outside of Broken Hill there were a few sculptures setup by artists from all over the world and we went to see them at sunset.

Broken Hill – stinking hot, but a beautiful outback and with lots to see and do. Well worth the drive!