Way out West

BROKEN HILL We have been here for three days, an interesting silver, lead and zinc mining town and for a mining town it appears really clean. The speed limit is 50kms, any more that that and your car would shake to bits as most roads despite being sealed are very bumpy.

There are a lot of art galleries and one hosts "The Big Picture" which is home to an amazing panoramic oil painting of the outback which is 100 metres long and over 12 metres high and took over two years to complete. In the room that it is housed the foreground has 300 tonne of red earth, plants, animals and birds so very life like.

SILVERTON is 25kms out of town from Broken Hill and was a booming mining town between 1881 and 1885, so just a few old buildings and also home to some art galleries. The Silverton Hotel has been featured in many movies, generally with a different name and the black Falcon next to us is the car used in the Mad Max movies with the local area as a back drop.

THE LIVING DESERT RESERVE is just 9kms out of Broken Hill, it has some walks which give you an idea of the area. As you can see we did get to see a kangaroo, he was one of two that we saw as well as a lizard and about a million flies. On our way out to Silverton earlier in the day we spotted some wild donkeys.
MUNDI MUNDI PLAINS with dust just starting to take off from this harsh landscape. Silverton and Broken Hill get a few dust storms each year as you can imagine, luckily we missed the one that Mildura had the other day.
PAUL with the Mundi Mundi Plains in the back ground whilst we were at The Living Desert, check out the flies, if you look closely you can see them buzzing just out from Paul's head, gross! Don't know how people can live in some of these areas.
STURT PEAS At long last we saw some of these flowers whilst at The Living Desert, they are the symbol of most desert areas so have seen them on lot's of souvenirs.
SCULPTURE SYMPOSIUM Next to The Living Desert there is a collection of sandstone carvings up on a hill overlooking the Mundi Mundi Plains and Broken Hill, this one is titled "Horse".