Living Desert State Park, Bell’s Milk Bar and the Royal Flying Doctor Service

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More sightseeing in Broken Hill today. We drove out to the Living Desert State Park where Cathy paid our fee at the PayBay. The payment was made for four people, but only produced one ticket. Hmmn, what to do when we are in two cars?? Cathy and Bernie had just decided to tear it in half when the ranger happened along. He agreed that sharing the ticket between the cars worked for him!

We made our way around to the sculptures which were proposed by Gosford based sculptor, Lawrence Beck to add sculpture to Broken Hill’s art culture. Fifty-three tonnes of sandstone was shipped in from Wilcannia and during April and May of 1993, 12 artists transformed the stone into an artwork of international renown. It really is very impressive perched on top of the hill outside Broken Hill. With hundreds of flies about we had decided it was the perfect time to road test our hat nets! They proved to be a good investment, making our sculpture viewing much more pleasant.

From the sculptures we drove around to the Living Desert sanctuary zone. The 2,400 hectare park nestled amongst the Barrier Ranges, was established in 1992 and is Broken Hill City Council’s contribution to the environment, for the protection of native flora and fauna. It was a beautiful blue sky day to completed the walking trails. Both trails start together and then the Cultural Walk Trail branches off. We walked all the way to the Scenic Lookout for a 360° view of the ranges. We continued past the Prospectors Mine and the Quartz Quarry before returning to the complete the rest of the Flora Tail. It was pretty hot again today, but with a welcome breeze blowing just enough to keep us comfortable.

While we were in the sanctuary zone our watches kept flipping from Central Daylight Savings Time to Eastern Daylight Savings Time. Broken Hill and Silverton are on CDST while the rest of NSW is on EDST. We figure we must have been pinging off a South Australian tower some of the time and a NSW tower at other times?? It wasn’t a problem except we had arranged to meet Cathy and Steve for lunch at 12.30pm and a couple of times we felt like we needed to rush back to the car to make it on time, but then realised we had half an hour up our sleeves.

On the way back into Broken Hill we stopped briefly at the JP Keenan Lookout. We have been driving past the sign for this lookout for the last two days so though we should pop in for a look. Basically it looks over the centre of Broken Hill towards the mullock heap that dominates the skyline looking south!

We continued south and then around the western end of the mullock heap - past the Gaffney Street Industrial Zone - and into South Broken Hill for lunch at Bell’s Milk Bar. The iconic milk bar commenced in 1892 and has been in its present form since 1956. It has a very short food menu, but an extensive range of milkshake and soda spider flavours! Cathy chose a lime spider, Steve a lemon spider and Bernie went for Kola. I don’t get mixing soft drink with ice-cream, so I opted for the traditional vanilla malted milkshake with nutmeg sprinkled on top.

After lunch we visited the Royal Flying Doctor Service. They run an excellent tour. They have three areas, the museum, the theatre and the hangar. They just slot people into whichever part of the tour is on next and then you finish after you have rotated through all three sections. The tour reinforced what am amazing service they offer for Australians living in remote areas.

We drove back to the other side of the mullock heap and tried to do part of the Broken Hill Silver Trail Drive, but backwards which was confusing! We soon gave up and drove to the top of the BHP Slag Heap to view the Line of Lode Miners’ Memorial which was unveiled in 2000. There used to be a restaurant up on the mullock heap too – The Broken Earth Café & Restaurant – but it has closed down and has temporary fencing all the way around it. Hard to tell if they are dismantling it or refurbishing it? We also saw the Big Bench which was built in 2002 as part of a Landscapes and Backgrounds exhibition. On the way back down we stopped at the Mullockers Memorial, unveiled in 2002 on the centenary of the rock fall that entombed two mullockers in the Central Mine, and the head of the Delprat Shaft.



Steps for the day: 12,702 (8.59km)

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