Broken Hill Part 2

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Geo: -31.9592, 141.467

So the bad news is that my camera is stuffed, can't take photos, so I was forced to buy a disposable camera, so expect crapper quality photos. I'm not too impressed; I have to get it fixed back either in Newcastle or Sydney and an exorbitant price most likely. So armed with limited photos from a disposable, I had to be frugal with what shots I was going to be taking.

So I was struggling a little bit on the Saturday, following my camera problems I had cash flow problems. Seeing as I had lost my wallet in Melbourne, I was still waiting for my bank cards to be sent from home, but because I had the week off and came to Broken Hill I told Mum to wait for me to get back to Newcastle. So with banks closed on the weekend, I was quickly running out of money and with no access to other money, so budgeting was the theme of the week, Once again.

I still managed to see a few sights around Broken Hill; I teamed up with a young German couple, Simon and Alex, for the day. We were fortunate to get access to a car, a guy staying at the hostel called Michael, very nice person, lent us his car to go check some sights out.

So we went to go check out the royal flying doctors museum, it's amazing to see the great work that is involved by everyone. It was a small museum with a short guided tour explaining the process and areas involved from the Broken Hill base, as well as a look at some of the aircraft; Valued at $8 million each.

The three of us then went for a quick look at the minor's memorial which has some horrible ways of how minors passed including falling, dying in explosions, dying with machinery and even scalding. But on the nicer side of the memorial were fantastic views over Broken Hill and into the distance as well as a giant park bench.

Then it was back to the hostel to watch the AFL Grand Final, followed by the three of us and Michael grabbing some pizza for dinner.

I woke up with a bit of a cold on the Sunday but that didn't stop me from heading out, I had already arranged to hire a car for the day, I decided to go to the town of Silverton only 25km away and popular for its replica mad max car and features in many shows and movies. Personally I was a bit disappointed, I had high hopes but it's a very small town with just old buildings just randomly scattered around.

So after a quick tour of Silverton I headed another 6 km and reached Mundi Mundi plains lookout, this is just a lookout from a small hill looking west along flat ground as far as the eye can see. It was quite cool to also see about 3 or 4 small mini dust tornados making their way across the landscape.

I then went an extra 3km further to a reservoir, but that was pretty boring, but it is odd to see a reservoir with water in such a dry and arid landscape.

Seeing all of those 3 things took all of 1.5hrs, so I recommend if you do go to those places, not to base a whole day around them. I still had the rest of the day and I had hired the car, so I made the most of it, even though I had to pay $50 extra for the extra km, I headed back into Broken Hill and headed south to Menindee lakes. What a waste of time that was. It's about an hour south of Broken Hill, but the lakes are all dry, nothing in them, although it did look cool to see all these dead trees scattered along the lake bed. So that's about all there was to do there, I recommend not to waste your time there. I also got a flat halfway to Menindee and of course there isn't anything around so it could have been worse, but I managed to change it over no problem.

The Sunday night was very low key, I was a bit sick and I had to get up at 3am to catch my bus back towards Sydney. Another 16.5 hr trip with an extra 2 hours up to Newcastle. So needless to say it was a drainer of the day.

So that concludes my 4 days in Broken Hill, overall I really enjoyed the place and the sights, I probably would only spend tops 3 days there where you would be able to see everything. The people I met at the Hostel were all fantastic as well as the hostel its self; the owners are friendly and a good place to stay in general.

So at the moment I haven't posted any photos because I have to get them developed and then I have to scan them, so hopefully at some point soon I will have some photos.

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