Blogs from Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania

Jim Loses his Camera in Broken Hill What a story this is and it’s all true. Believe me! Wayne said that I could not make this up when we told him what had happened today. Here’s how it developed. Yesterday (22nd August) – our only full day in Broken Hill Sue and I decided to do the rounds of the Art Galleries – Yes “us” in Art Galleries is unbelievable for a start, but if you know Broken Hill you will know that this place is famous for it’s artists. Most famous would be “Pro” Hart. Pro passed away a few years ago and a Gallery has been set up in his honour. We went there and were able to take photos of his work and his studio, which was exactly as he left ... read more

After Hawker, we moved south to Peterborough, which is about 250km north of Adelaide. It is absolutely a town created by a railway. South Australia originally established its rail in 1856 on what was known as broad gauge (5’3”). When the area inland was opened up, to save money they used a narrow gauge (3’6”). When the transcontinental rail arrived from NSW, it used a standard gauge (4’8½”). All these met at Peterborough so engineering works were established to service trains of all three gauges. To make things even more complicated the transshipment point from broad to narrow gauge was set up 20km south at Terowie. At this point every passenger, luggage, freight, livestock, etc had to be unloaded and reloaded onto a new train to accommodate the change of gauge. After 1883 when silver and ... read more

Well here we are on our second night in Broken Hill and third night of our holiday. We are all well and looking froward to going to Port Augusta tomorrow. After the first day we were ready to turn around and come home!!! The wind all the way to Mildura was terrible and that was just inside the car!! We finally got to Mildura nearly nine hours after setting off and were all in bed by 8.30pm. Definitely won't be doing that in a day again. The drive to Broken Hill was much easier and we saw our first emu's at 12.45pm grazing by the side of the road. We got here around 2.00pm yesterday and spent most of the afternoon pottering around before driving up to the miners memorial last night. Some great views of ... read more

Hi everyone. Today has been great. Have spent our time touring the city of Broken Hill. It is a lovely place and everyone is so friendly. The higlights today for me was our visit out to the Royal Flying Doctor Service. visit to a railway museum and afternoon tea in an authentic 50's Milk Bar (Called Bell's) - chequered black and white squared lino. 50's decor. memorabilia and 50's songs from the jutebox. We are surprised by the lack of grass here, especially as they have had so much rain and floods. Most front yards are either concrete or just dirt. Not many new homes, mainly older style miner cottages. I need to answer a few questions from my cousin John who lives in England. We needed to eat all our fruit before we arrived at ... read more

Hi everyone, we left home at 10.20am this morning and have enjoyed a leisurely trip. First heading north up the New England Highway and then we started our trip West. We had many stops for road works and oversized traffic. But we didn't mind, we had all day and it didn't matter where we landed. We had lunch in a lovely park at Merriwa. Then travelled on to Dubbo where ............. wait for it ............. Rodger had to go to Bunnings. We did some shopping there and filled up with diesel. We have now stopped (arrived at 6.15pm) for the night in a lovely little town called Trangie, about 30 Kl West of Narromine. I can not 'map' it for you because it does not exist in this program. But it is a real place........ we ... read more

Hi everyone. Yes today is Rodger's 67th Birthday and he has enjoyed it very much. We travelled from Trangie to Broken Hill today. We looked out of our door at 6am to a beautiful sunrise, had breakfast and was on the road again by 7.30am. We had lunch about 11.30am at a road side stop with 8 other Grey Nomads. Of course we had to stop this arvo and eat all our fruit before we entered Broken Hill. or get a $200 fine. We both are amazed by the lack of wild life around. Maybe they have relocated use to the floods. Speaking of floods. The last time we tavelled this road it was barren and mostly red dirt. Now it is green and lush, we were so surprised and happy. Back to the wildlife. Lots ... read more