Stay:Broken Hill Racecourse $20/unpowered (-31.913864, 141.481398)
After another lovely day at Pamamaroo Lake, we set off this morning to Broken Hill about 115km away. It was a pleasant drive. We stopped at the Menindee Lake lookout. The lake is the largest at 14km wide and 16 km long, of the storage system developed here around 1950. The Combined capacity is 1,731,000 megalitres (3.5 times that of Sydney harbour). Unfortunately the lake was drained in 2017 to help with drought conditions in SA and has not been refilled since.
Further along the road about half way to Broken Hill we stopped for breakfast at Stephen Creek(dry) at the ruins of an old pub that had been here from 1890’s to 2000..
There was a lot of this along the way with a road now and then heading to a stations (large sheep or cattle farms).
Just before Broken Hill we traversed the Barrier mountain range reaching an altitude of 325m.
Just thought this was a very elaborate fence for such a small building...
Spotted a bit of Art Deco ...
WWI war memorial.
A dedication to the afghan camel drivers..
Copper tinge to the slag heap
On our approach we were glad we didn’t have to cross the railway line as an extremely long freight train slowly rumbled in.
We parked near the Information Centre (reopening tomorrow) in the dedicated RV area next to the dump point. There was also an original relocated mine head and some information on mining in Broken Hill.
It is the birthplace of BHP formed by the syndicate seven.
By 1950’s the city was producing more than 10 per cent of the entire world’s lead.Today, more than 50 million tonnes of lead and zinc, and 20,000 tonnes of silver have been extracted from northwards of 200 million tonnes of ore. There is evidence of mining activity all over town. We strolled around following the heritage trail admiring some of the grand building still left.
The train station.
We then drove up to the Miners Memorial with a list of all the names of those who died whilst working in a mine. Unfortunately due to COVID the mines are closed to visitors, although we did visit one here in 1999.
We had lunch at the Ambush Site.
We then drove out to Silverton, also a mining town, but is now well known for the movies that have been filmed around here.
After some shopping and a refuel we made our way to the Broken Hill Racecourse and joined a few other travellers for the night.
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