Broken Hill welcomes you with a tall shaft headframe on
every road into town, just to let you know that you’re entering a mining town.
A high central ridge dominates the city centre, and we later learn that this is
predominately made of spoil from a century of mining, and that beneath this
ridge is the lode of silver, lead and zinc that was responsible for
establishing Broken Hill in the first place. This lode is the largest of its
kind ever found on earth, and the seven blokes who discovered it and started
the first mine in the 1880s are revered as heroes today. They were the founders
of BHP.
What’s strange to me is that this large town of nearly
20,000 population is nowhere near a water source, and all its water is piped
from a hundred kilometres away at Lake Menindie. The lack of such a valuable
resource is evident in the sandy terrain and sparse gardens, and we’re told
that it hasn’t rained here since last October. Yet, there is also evidence that
when it does rain, it floods because there are no underground drains in the
streets. Therefore, the streets have a camber on them that slope into
high-walled gutters, and there are culverts at the end of every street to
collect the runoff and direct it to wetlands.
The Miner's Memorial, at left, on top of the massive slag pile in the middle of Broken Hill.
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There seems to be a pub on every corner, but its 20-odd
pubs now is nothing on the 70-odd pubs in its heyday when the population was
over 30,000. One such pub, The Palace Hotel, was where “Priscilla” was filmed
in 1994. Some of Broken Hill’s famous residents (now no longer with us) include
actor Chips Rafferty, singer June Bronhill (who changed her last name to
commemorate her birthplace) and artist Pro Hart. We visited Pro’s gallery and
grave, and he is obviously a popular figure in the town’s history. There are
many art galleries and there are many pieces (Pro’s and others) adorning parks
and gardens in the city centre. There’s even a set of desert stone sculptures
just on the outskirts, and while viewing them we witnessed a sunset that will
be etched in the memory for a long time. It was like red clouds boiling in the
sky.
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Sunset in the Australian outback. |
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Silverton. |
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