Blogs from Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania
May 22nd 2012
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
Getting to know the bush
Published: August 5th 2011Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Broken Hill
August 5th 2011
Narrabri to Dubbo Mum and I stopped in Coonabarrabran for lunch after travelling through miles and miles of Pilliga Scrub. Mum didn't want to go to the "Pilliga Discovery Centre": she couldn't see how you couldn't find the scrub on your own! We visited the Diprotodon at Coonabarrabran - the largest megafauna found in Australia. We bypassed Gilgandra and went to Dubbo via Mendooran. The buildings there have murals on most of them so they are very colourfull. Going this was was good because it avoided a lot of the truck traffic along the Oxley and Newell Highways. We had a nice meal at the RSL in Dubbo. The motel was good with lots of room. Dubbo to Broken Hill Up and away early on a long day's drive to Broken Hill. The road was straight ... read more
July 12th 2011
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
Day 3 - Cruisin' around Broken Hill
Published: April 6th 2011Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Broken Hill
April 6th 2011
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
April 6th 2011
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
Day 2 Happy Birthday Rodger
Published: April 5th 2011Oceania » Australia » New South Wales » Broken HillApril 5th 2011
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
January 28th 2011
Broken Hill Well due to the floods and landlips in Victoria my plans had changed and part of that change was to take in the Broken Hill leg of the Senior Oz title. Outback speedway. We left from Murray Bridge 0930 ish and arrived in Broken Hill 1700 and passed a grand total of about 5 cars!! You'll see a couple of photos from Manna Hill which was basically a road side cafe en route to Broken Hill... really in the middle of nowhere. Our food order of 2 burgers caused a black out in the cafe!! Broken Hill is still a mining town (silver and lead I think) and is very very hot. The couple of days we were there it was 42 and 39 deg centigrade. We stayed in the Black Lion Hotel another ... read more
October 6th 2010
Ian and Dave departed on Monday from a very wet and misty Armidale. headed off west down the hills and out onto the plains, first night Warren. Tuesday departed Warren and headed to Broken Hill. Seem to be having a good time. ... read more
August 25th 2010
Hey All, Today we stayed in and around Broken Hill. We needed a recharge so we slept in then had a big cooked breaky. We headed off to Silverton, 20k out of Broken Hill. Silverton in its hey day had about 5000 people living there, 12 pubs, a courthouse and gaol. The town itself has been in approx 100 movies and commercials, a commercial is filmed there nearly every two months. Mad Max 2 was filmed there and they even had a replica of the interceptor parked near the pub. It is a bit of a ghost town now, about 20 people live there but the history of the place was pretty good. After some coffee, scones and damper from one of the old huts we headed to the Living Desert and the Sculptures. This was ... read more
