Caravan Trip Week 3

 Our first morning in Broken Hill was spent catching up on a pile of washing and some house keeping. We also visited the tourist info center and went and got some spare keys cut for caravans so we wouldn't have another drama! 

We went for a drive out to Silverton (about 26kms out of Broken Hill). Sliverton is also known as "Beyond the 39 Dips". The road  has 39 "Dip" signs with all these dips to let water flow away when heavy rains arrive. Not the best for car sickness people. Silverton only has a population of about 50 and in its heyday of silver mining it was about 3000. Today it is more of a tourist town with some interesting artists in residence and tourist related businesses...

 



 

I was very happy to see a beautiful Sturt Pea flower...

 

Along with all the "Dips" we had wild brumbys on the roadside... 

We also went up the Broken Hill lookout...

And had a walk up the main street - Argent St...



Famous Palace Hotel

We decided to do a tour of Broken Hill and put the doggies into the RSCPA day care. It was a very interesting way to hear all about Broken Hill's history and the tour took us to many places we couldn't access ourselves.  Broken Hill became the largest and richest ore body in the world with lead, zinc and silver...

 

Browne shaft

We were very lucky to be able to go up to the Line of Lode Miner's Memorial which sits on the edge of the mullock heap that bisects Broken Hill. (It is closed to the public indefinitely and only accessible on a tour)...



Views over Broken Hill

The names of over 800 miners who lost their lives on the job  are listed...

It was also interesting to learn  that in its heyday Broken Hill had 72 pubs to quench the thirst of thousands of working miners. Now there are just 16 or so. We went inside the Palace Hotel which had been used to film the movie Priscilla Queen of the Desert... 

 

We also called into the authentic 1950's Bells Milk Bar for afternoon tea and checked out their museum... 

Before we left Broken Hill we visited Pro Hart's Gallery. It was a beautiful display of his work and love affair with painting bush inspired art. He was a collector of Rolls Royce cars and painted this 1973 model in Australian historical scenes in 1999...

From Broken Hill we headed south. We stopped at a little town called Wentworth and went up the lookout to see the junction of Australia's two most important rivers  - the Murray and the Darling...


Junction of the Murray and Darling Rivers

In the same park was this clever embankment which is designed to blend in with the houses and trees behind it if you stand on the specifically marked spot in the park...

 

We set up camp in a lovely caravan park in Buronga on the banks of the Murray River. It was rather strange driving over the bridge into Victoria to do some shopping... 

Then driving back into New South Wales to our caravan...

It was a very pet friendly park with a fantastic laundry and bath set up for a much needed  clean up!...

 

One evening we decided to walk from one state to another across the bridge, it was a bit scary with no barrier between us and the trucks and traffic but at least we did it! Both of these photos are from NSW looking back to VIC... 

 

Looking back over Murray River to our caravan park

A shot of the bridge which joins the 2 states...

One of the days we stayed in Buronga we took the dogs to day care just outside of Mildura so we could go for a ride on the paddle steamer. To travel down the Murray River you have to pass through "Locks" On our cruise on the Melbourne paddle steamer we had to pass through Lock No 11 as the water level drops 3 meteres down stream of the weir...

The gates closing behind us when we had gone into the Lock...

Gates opening in front of us after water has been drained from the Lock bring us down to river level below the weir. It was a very strange feeling as the boat lowered 3 metres...

 

It was a nice relaxing cruise up the river and we enjoyed some lunch here...

We then had to go through the Lock again this time in reverse - being raised the 3 metres...

Very interesting watching the water be pumped in...

 

And off we went again...

As we got our paddle steamer we saw this rather strange looking contraption of a boat and the media taking photos of it. We went and had a closer look and were actually allowed to go aboard and have a look. The owner calls himself "Chookman" and travels around with his chooks and has made a few documentaries...

Here's a look inside - not exactly very hygienic!...

 

Later that afternoon we went out to Orange World in Mildura. We did a tour with a hilarious man named Mario who was the orchard owner and he really made the tour a lot of fun and his wife made beautiful orange cake... 

 

I loved these sculptures in the playground of our caravan park...  

 

 From Buronga we kept heading south and went and visited Mum and Dad J's good lifelong friends Jack and Val in Robinvale. They had a stunning cherry blossom tree in their backyard...

We had a very nice morning tea and chat with them...

We drove onto Swan Hill to stay a few nights. We were interested in visiting this town as it is where we found the old receipt in our vintage van Mildred from 1972. Once again we were staying on the banks of the Murray River and took the dogs for some nice walks along it...