Day 71 and 72. Into the 11th week now on the road. We left freezing Peterborough and arrived in sunny warmer Broken Hill early afternoon. Even managed a t-shirt for a while. My grandfather was a miner here and my grandmother a barmaid in the first decade of the 20th century. It was the second largest town in NSW then.
Tuesday we visited the Daydream Mine outside Silverton. The mine has been active 3 times since 1882. It is much as it was in 1882, as far as we could tell. We went underground using lamps, thank goodness modern ones! Miners are very short people or we are very tall! Actually the original mine was set up by the Cornish miners, who, as a friend commented on a recent trip to England, were as tall (or short) as hedgehogs, and built their inns accordingly!
Then on to Silverton, famous in film and advertisements. Mad Max was filmed nearby and there are automotive memorabilia of same around the famous pub. Later, back in BH, we drove around, and around, and around..... The Line of Load..... Looking for the lookout. We finally found a commercial sign to the wonderful restaurant, Broken Earth, that sits on the top of the Line of Load. And the Lookout. We were truly 'baffled of Broken Hill'! Even more baffling was the lack of signage to the Miners' Memorial, a wonderful building at the same place. We could see it all from down below but we could not find the usual brown point of interest sign. Anyway, the view and the buildings are great, and the coffee soothing!