Tuesday 11th August 09
We visited the Silver City Mint Gallery which is a picture Gallery combined with a silver jewellery shop. The paintings were by local artists, of which there are many, as Broken Hill seems to attract artists like honey attracts flies and ants. It was claimed that this is because of the red colour of the soil, etc, at sun rise and sunset but if that were the case they would all be in the Pilbara. I think it is more likely a case of numerous vacant rundown miners’ cottages available at lower rental or purchase cost, unlike the Pilbara. However, some of the paintings were good enough for me (Barry) to admit to being prepared to hang them in my home (mainly by Paul Anderson), but this was made non-viable by ridiculous price tags. The gallery boasts to having the ‘Big Picture’ being the largest picture in the world (12m x 100m), by Anderson, effectively including scenes of the surrounding area of Broken Hill within a 300km radius. It is very impressive but we actually prefer the slightly smaller ‘Panorama’ at Hawker, of the Wilpena Pound, plus this had the addition of three other exceptional outsize paintings. In Anderson’s favour, his paintings of birds in close up view are hard to believe they are paintings and not high definition photographs.
We moved on to both Jack Absalom’s and Pro Hart’s Galleries and came away disappointed in both cases. Pro Hart has never appealed to me and Absalom’s paintings seemed very dull and drab. Pro Hart’s offspring have also gone down the same arty path and some of the paintings by the daughter look like a copy of the old man’s; highlighting the same trees. It would appear that the Hart family have only ever seen one type of tree.
In the Visitors booklet there are 14 art galleries listed and I suspect there are many more.
We then drove up to Mullockers Memorial and Miner’s Memorial on top of the slag heap behind the railway station, the former being a café and souvenir shop and the
later being a tribute to many unfortunate miners as a result of a vast variety of accidents. Many of which simply could not happen nowadays due to improved safety regulations and the fact that mining is almost all open cut, rather than tunnelling.
We visited the Silver City Mint Gallery which is a picture Gallery combined with a silver jewellery shop. The paintings were by local artists, of which there are many, as Broken Hill seems to attract artists like honey attracts flies and ants. It was claimed that this is because of the red colour of the soil, etc, at sun rise and sunset but if that were the case they would all be in the Pilbara. I think it is more likely a case of numerous vacant rundown miners’ cottages available at lower rental or purchase cost, unlike the Pilbara. However, some of the paintings were good enough for me (Barry) to admit to being prepared to hang them in my home (mainly by Paul Anderson), but this was made non-viable by ridiculous price tags. The gallery boasts to having the ‘Big Picture’ being the largest picture in the world (12m x 100m), by Anderson, effectively including scenes of the surrounding area of Broken Hill within a 300km radius. It is very impressive but we actually prefer the slightly smaller ‘Panorama’ at Hawker, of the Wilpena Pound, plus this had the addition of three other exceptional outsize paintings. In Anderson’s favour, his paintings of birds in close up view are hard to believe they are paintings and not high definition photographs.
We moved on to both Jack Absalom’s and Pro Hart’s Galleries and came away disappointed in both cases. Pro Hart has never appealed to me and Absalom’s paintings seemed very dull and drab. Pro Hart’s offspring have also gone down the same arty path and some of the paintings by the daughter look like a copy of the old man’s; highlighting the same trees. It would appear that the Hart family have only ever seen one type of tree.
In the Visitors booklet there are 14 art galleries listed and I suspect there are many more.
We then drove up to Mullockers Memorial and Miner’s Memorial on top of the slag heap behind the railway station, the former being a café and souvenir shop and the
later being a tribute to many unfortunate miners as a result of a vast variety of accidents. Many of which simply could not happen nowadays due to improved safety regulations and the fact that mining is almost all open cut, rather than tunnelling.Wednesday 12th August 09
I dropped the car off at a garage in Broken Hill South for its 70,000 km service and collected it after lunch.
I dropped the car off at a garage in Broken Hill South for its 70,000 km service and collected it after lunch.
After shopping for a few items, we visited the Geo Centre which is a museum displaying 300 mineral specimens which includes a 42kg silver nugget (not the largest found in Broken Hill by any means but the only one that was kept in original form) and a rather special silver tree which is about 3 feet high. There was a display of some of the rocks under black light which was really spectacular with some amazing iridescent colours. Just before 4.30 we went to the station to watch the Indian/Pacific come in from Perth but after waiting ½ an hour we realised that it wasn’t coming. Merry rang the number shown on one of the boards and the recorded message said the train left Perth on time on Wednesday morning at 11:something am. We realised that it couldn’t possibly get to Broken Hill by the afternoon so a further study of the time table showed that the train arrived at 4:30 pm on Fridays, so we will try again then.
Thursday 13th August 09
We had to do some more shopping so we took the opportunity of calling into the Silver City Mint Gallery again so that Merry could have a new silver charm added to her bracelet, which we left there for collection the following day. We then called into the visitors centre and acquired the key for ‘The living Desert and Sculptures’.
Thursday 13th August 09
We had to do some more shopping so we took the opportunity of calling into the Silver City Mint Gallery again so that Merry could have a new silver charm added to her bracelet, which we left there for collection the following day. We then called into the visitors centre and acquired the key for ‘The living Desert and Sculptures’.
After lunch we headed out to view the sculptures. 
We then drove to the living desert which Merry walked around alone. I started the walk but there wasn’t anything of interest for me as there were no flowers, animals, insects, etc, so chose to wait in the car, which Foxy appreciated.
The key for this little expedition was supposed to be returned within 5 hours which we only discovered after the 5 hours had elapsed, and by the time Merry returned from her walk we were also too late to return it, as the visitors centre closed before we could get there.
Friday 14th August 09
In the morning we collecting our mail from the post office in the
The key for this little expedition was supposed to be returned within 5 hours which we only discovered after the 5 hours had elapsed, and by the time Merry returned from her walk we were also too late to return it, as the visitors centre closed before we could get there.
Friday 14th August 09
In the morning we collecting our mail from the post office in the
northern part of Broken Hill and then we drove into the main town area and returned the key to the visitor centre. We then went to the Silver City Mint Gallery to collect Merry’s bracelet and also have 2 other charms which she bought when we toured New Zealand, added to it. Fortunately they were able to do this straight away which allowed us to walk around part of the Heritage Trail that 
includes the CBD, which didn’t do a lot for us as it mainly involved the Pubs on every corner (some still in use and some now shops or private residence).
includes the CBD, which didn’t do a lot for us as it mainly involved the Pubs on every corner (some still in use and some now shops or private residence). 
In the process we dropped into a store and bought a new laptop which may solve some off our computing problems, or possibly even add to them. On returning to the caravan, Merry played with the new toy until it was time to greet the Indian/Pacific train, which we successfully managed this time.
Saturday 15th August 09
We drove round the Heritage trail, both through the CBD and the outer lying parts which took in more pubs, churches, numerous miners’ cottages, a quarts outcrop and several lookouts, including another visit to the top of the slag heap behind the railway station. On this occasion it gave us some photo opportunities of the City (sun in a better position) and the ‘Southern Aurora’ train standing in the station.
We drove round the Heritage trail, both through the CBD and the outer lying parts which took in more pubs, churches, numerous miners’ cottages, a quarts outcrop and several lookouts, including another visit to the top of the slag heap behind the railway station. On this occasion it gave us some photo opportunities of the City (sun in a better position) and the ‘Southern Aurora’ train standing in the station.We spent the afternoon packing up the annex and awning in readiness to move on in the morning, and achieved this before the gradually rising wind made it too difficult.
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