Broken Hill

We had left everything inside the van for the first time ever last night.  It was raining and we didn't want everything to get wet.  It was a bit awkward, climbing over boxes and folded chairs and a folded table to get to bed, but it worked out okay, so strictly speaking we should have been able to get away really early.  Nothing to pack into the van this morning.  umm, no.  We dawdled around eating breakfast, boiling vegetables in case I had to hand them in going across the SA/NSW border, and even the people in the late night tent got away before us.  Never mind.  It's all part of the journey.

We only had a short way to go before New South Wales.  They were stopping people on the way into South Australia, checking for fruit and veg, but on the way out there was nothing, so I have my vegetables all boiled ready for tonight.

Broken Hill is a large mining town in the Barrier Ranges, built to mine a large silver deposit.  The first silver was discovered here by a boundary rider, a man who rode up and down a section of the dingo fence to check it was all in order.  There are these different fences in Australia running from north to south, or east to west; rabbit fence, dingo fence; to try and keep some of these animals out of crops.  I'm sure if it would work they'd have constructed a cane toad fence, but cane toads are unstoppable.

Anyway, Charles Rasp found the first silver here in 1883.  The Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP) company then proceeded to mine it for many years, employing thousands of men and women.  The Broken Hill, from where the town got it’s name, no longer exists because it has been mined away.  BHP developed a commercial process for frothing metals out of crushed rock, making it more productive in it's mining.  It looked like the same process that they use now in Kalgoorlie to extract the gold.  In Broken Hill they mine silver, lead and zinc.

Unions have always played a big part in Broken Hill, and an eighteen month long strike was staged here between 1908 and 1909 to ask for better working conditions for the miners.  In the end they were successful.  Today BHP no longer operates in Broken Hill.  there are two smaller companies employing about 400 people.  But they are expected to still mine for another 30 to 40 years.

We learnt a lot of this when we went to White's mining museum, a museum set up in Kevin White's large shed.  He had done a good job framing it inside with Oregon timber, just like he did for 26 years in the mine.  It was like being underground.  Kevin grinds up different minerals from the mines to make pictures.  Some of them were very good. 

 

 

 

After White's we drove to the miner's memorial, set up on top  of the mullock heap of rubble they have pulled out of the ground.  The whole pile looked very unstable to us, but I guess they'd made sure it's solid before they built on top. They have a wall of all the miners who have died at Broken Hill.  One boy was 14 and had fallen down a shaft.  There were a number who had been involved in a fall of rock.  We sat on the big bench up there.  It was big.

 

 

We had a good view of the town, a train coming in from Sydney direction, and a lovely breeze.  We hunted on the ground for rocks with silver or zinc or lead in them...don't think we had any luck here either.

 

 

 

 

Tonight we are camped 25km north of Broken Hill, just outside of Silverton, at Penrose Park.  We have green grass, a lovely breeze, some playground equipment, and corellas flying and squawking everywhere.

Unfortunately, we also have fierce swarms of mosquitoes crowding the fly screens, trying to get into the van.  No eating outside tonight.

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Vicki