Bourke & Beyond - Day 6
Oct. 8th, 2020 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanBroken Hill, Silverton, Mundi Mundi
One thing you need to know about Broken Hill on a Monday... it’s like Bourke on a Sunday - everything seems to be closed, so the few places that are open for breakfast, are in high demand. So, no breakfast for us at the Silly Goat café, but a quite acceptable substitute 50m down the road at the next one
Some sight-seeing today, not something I’ve ever done in Broken Hill, but L-SP has, so she had a list of places worth seeing, starting with the Line of Lode Miners Memorial at the top of the broken hill itself. This was under construction last time we were here, so a first for both of us to start the day with. It’s a memorial to 817 miners who have died in the mines since they started in the late 1880s. The structure itself is in the shape of the mineral lode under the hill & lists the names of the miners, as well as how they died - everything from asphyxiation, falling down shafts, explosions, run over by machinery... & one poor guy who fell off his bike. It’s telling that as the 20th century ticked over, the numbers decrease year by year, especially as the miner’s union movement won more & more concessions on working conditions & safety regulations, to the point where the last recorded fatality was in 2008 & there was only one that year, compared to dozens in the mines early years
Speaking of those early years, our next stop was White’s Mineral Art Gallery & Mining Museum, on the western outskirts of town. This is run by an elderly couple who have collected a huge array of mining equipment from the last hundred years or so & have arranged it in a gallery that they’ve designed to look like a mine shaft. Any spare space on the walls is filled by mineral sand paintings done by one of the owner’s older brothers - now deceased (which is not that surprising, as the owner himself must be in his mid 80s at least). The paintings are done by taking a photograph & then grinding various minerals to a fine sand, or powder in various colours, then it’s kind of like painting by numbers. Lots of works depicting the mines & miners of course, but a surprising selection of other topics - including various biblical scenes. Not sure where he got the photos of those from...
Next, to the Flying Doctors base out at the airport on the other side of town. Begun by a Methodist missionary after the First World War, they fly doctors & nurses throughout regional Australia, dealing with everything from births, accidents, cancer & dentistry, landing on everything from bush airstrips, to a flat enough paddock. So not only do you need to be across multiple medical disciplines, you also need balls of steel... & that goes for the women too
Back to town for a quick late-lunch break & to discover that the bookshop we wanted to visit was, of course, closed on Mondays. So, next was a trip out to Silverton, about 20kms north west of town &, as the name suggests, an old silver mining town founded about 5 years after Broken Hill. It’s also famous for having been the central location for the Mad Max movies. A few artists have moved out to the area as well, obviously finding the hustle of Broken Hill too much for them. Last time we were here, it was an overcast day, which today certainly wasn’t, so the light was pretty harsh, but certainly a nicer day to be wandering ‘round the town. There's a Mad Max 'museum' in the town, which we didn't visit last time we were here & didn't this time either. We did wander through one of the places styling itself as a museum, which was interesting from an artistic point of view - as there were a lot of paintings by Howard Steer, a Broken Hill painter whose work is highly stylised & the kind of thing you either like, or don't.... The Gallery owner wasn't very chatty, but his dog was friendly
The landscape of the town is littered with old mining houses & some 'half-houses' - which was a house you could build half of & live in while you tried to make enough money to build the other half. Some never did & these days, there's about half of the half-house still standing...
One from 2014, when we were last here... a better photo than I managed this time!
From Silverton, it’s a short drive out to the Mundi Mundi Plains - a vast open space that extends out to the South Australian border & the desert beyond it. The place is so vast, wide & flat, it’s been said you can see the curvature of the earth. Perhaps this is the reason the lookout location was chosen today by an aspiring young rock star to shoot video footage for his new single. He & his team arrived at the lookout about 2 minutes after we did & set themselves up with lights, cameras, a drone & a boom box which belted out the song about half a dozen times... something about how his girl has left him because she’s not ready for love. Dressed in black & striking anthemic poses against the flat, but stunning landscape - U2’s photos & videos in the Joshua Tree desert back in the 1980s have a lot to answer for
The sunset was cloudless & given the absence of any landscape features, it was a tricky one. Only when the sun was touching the horizon & its light had dialled waaay down, could we get shots that featured the landscape as well as the sky
Back to Broken Hill & we decided, after having driven past the place about 4 times over the last 2 days, to go into the Musicians Club. It turned out to be less of a haven for players of instruments & more of a lesser RSL, or sports club. But the bistro menu had enough appeal & the drinks were cheaper than the other places we’d been, so dinner it was
Afterwards we took a drive back up to the Miners Memorial, to see if it was lit up at night. It wasn’t... well, not until Laura’s high beam headlights hit it, but that wasn’t good enough for a night shot of the place, so back here to the Motel, as we have another long day in the saddle tomorrow. As we arrived, guess whose car was in the Motel carpark? Definitely time to go then...
One thing you need to know about Broken Hill on a Monday... it’s like Bourke on a Sunday - everything seems to be closed, so the few places that are open for breakfast, are in high demand. So, no breakfast for us at the Silly Goat café, but a quite acceptable substitute 50m down the road at the next one
Some sight-seeing today, not something I’ve ever done in Broken Hill, but L-SP has, so she had a list of places worth seeing, starting with the Line of Lode Miners Memorial at the top of the broken hill itself. This was under construction last time we were here, so a first for both of us to start the day with. It’s a memorial to 817 miners who have died in the mines since they started in the late 1880s. The structure itself is in the shape of the mineral lode under the hill & lists the names of the miners, as well as how they died - everything from asphyxiation, falling down shafts, explosions, run over by machinery... & one poor guy who fell off his bike. It’s telling that as the 20th century ticked over, the numbers decrease year by year, especially as the miner’s union movement won more & more concessions on working conditions & safety regulations, to the point where the last recorded fatality was in 2008 & there was only one that year, compared to dozens in the mines early years
Speaking of those early years, our next stop was White’s Mineral Art Gallery & Mining Museum, on the western outskirts of town. This is run by an elderly couple who have collected a huge array of mining equipment from the last hundred years or so & have arranged it in a gallery that they’ve designed to look like a mine shaft. Any spare space on the walls is filled by mineral sand paintings done by one of the owner’s older brothers - now deceased (which is not that surprising, as the owner himself must be in his mid 80s at least). The paintings are done by taking a photograph & then grinding various minerals to a fine sand, or powder in various colours, then it’s kind of like painting by numbers. Lots of works depicting the mines & miners of course, but a surprising selection of other topics - including various biblical scenes. Not sure where he got the photos of those from...
Next, to the Flying Doctors base out at the airport on the other side of town. Begun by a Methodist missionary after the First World War, they fly doctors & nurses throughout regional Australia, dealing with everything from births, accidents, cancer & dentistry, landing on everything from bush airstrips, to a flat enough paddock. So not only do you need to be across multiple medical disciplines, you also need balls of steel... & that goes for the women too
Back to town for a quick late-lunch break & to discover that the bookshop we wanted to visit was, of course, closed on Mondays. So, next was a trip out to Silverton, about 20kms north west of town &, as the name suggests, an old silver mining town founded about 5 years after Broken Hill. It’s also famous for having been the central location for the Mad Max movies. A few artists have moved out to the area as well, obviously finding the hustle of Broken Hill too much for them. Last time we were here, it was an overcast day, which today certainly wasn’t, so the light was pretty harsh, but certainly a nicer day to be wandering ‘round the town. There's a Mad Max 'museum' in the town, which we didn't visit last time we were here & didn't this time either. We did wander through one of the places styling itself as a museum, which was interesting from an artistic point of view - as there were a lot of paintings by Howard Steer, a Broken Hill painter whose work is highly stylised & the kind of thing you either like, or don't.... The Gallery owner wasn't very chatty, but his dog was friendly
The landscape of the town is littered with old mining houses & some 'half-houses' - which was a house you could build half of & live in while you tried to make enough money to build the other half. Some never did & these days, there's about half of the half-house still standing...
One from 2014, when we were last here... a better photo than I managed this time!
From Silverton, it’s a short drive out to the Mundi Mundi Plains - a vast open space that extends out to the South Australian border & the desert beyond it. The place is so vast, wide & flat, it’s been said you can see the curvature of the earth. Perhaps this is the reason the lookout location was chosen today by an aspiring young rock star to shoot video footage for his new single. He & his team arrived at the lookout about 2 minutes after we did & set themselves up with lights, cameras, a drone & a boom box which belted out the song about half a dozen times... something about how his girl has left him because she’s not ready for love. Dressed in black & striking anthemic poses against the flat, but stunning landscape - U2’s photos & videos in the Joshua Tree desert back in the 1980s have a lot to answer for
The sunset was cloudless & given the absence of any landscape features, it was a tricky one. Only when the sun was touching the horizon & its light had dialled waaay down, could we get shots that featured the landscape as well as the sky
Back to Broken Hill & we decided, after having driven past the place about 4 times over the last 2 days, to go into the Musicians Club. It turned out to be less of a haven for players of instruments & more of a lesser RSL, or sports club. But the bistro menu had enough appeal & the drinks were cheaper than the other places we’d been, so dinner it was
Afterwards we took a drive back up to the Miners Memorial, to see if it was lit up at night. It wasn’t... well, not until Laura’s high beam headlights hit it, but that wasn’t good enough for a night shot of the place, so back here to the Motel, as we have another long day in the saddle tomorrow. As we arrived, guess whose car was in the Motel carpark? Definitely time to go then...
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Date: 2020-10-08 03:18 pm (UTC)