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Matt & Gem Living the Dream
The next day we made it through Dubbo and stayed at a free campsite on the way to Broken Hill. The next morning we decided to go and see a mining museum in Broken Hill, it was a musuem run by a guy who used to mine in the area and he had worked very hard to make the place look like we were actually down a mine! We watched a video on how the mining started in Broken Hill and what the mining is like today compared to when it first started. They mine Zink and Silver here mostly.
Broken Hill was the first time that the three of us had seen real aborigine people. Not what we expected at all, they were all drinking at 10am in the morning and sitting under trees along the road. It wouldn'y be until later in our trip that we would learn more about the hows and whys of this.
The next day we drove in the unrelenting heat to Peterborough and treated ourselves to a stay in a caravan park so that we could have a hot shower and use their kitchen facilities. Apart from being attacked by Cane Toads in the showers and toilets at night it was a very nice stay.
The next day we stopped in at a tourist office and were told to go to a place called Magnetic Hill, the lady in the tourist office wouldn't tell us what would happen there, she just gave us a map of how to get there. We found the hill and drove over it to the bottom where there was a sign advising to turn the engine off and leave the handbrake off, we have a video on here of what happened, very strange! That night we stayed at a rest stop in the desert, we drove for miles without seeing any other cars and the only landmarks were dried up creeks and lakes.
The next day we set off for Coober Pedy and made it there for a linch break. Coober Pedy is another mining town but here they mine pearls. We stopped at a supermarket to buy lunch supplies and were amazed by the aboriginal people again. When we stopped at a rest stop to eat lunch Scott got caught in a mini cyclone, he was pelted with small stones and leaves, it was a had to be there moment but believe us it was hilarious!
We finally made it to the Northern Territory and found a rest stop in the middle of the desert just off the road to stay for a night. It was a funny night, the three of us were playing Uno and a German guy asked if he could join us. By the end of the night Martin had decided to drive with us to Ayres Rock as we would be there the following day and he enjoyed some Goon (wine) with us. At one point an older guy pulled into the rest stop in an estate car. As usual Matt went to have a chat with him. It turned out he had a dead body in the car and was taking it to Canberra for a post mortem. The funniest thing was that Matt asked how the guy died, the old man replied, "if I knew the answer to that he wouldn't be in the back of my car going for a post mortem!".
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