Australia here we come!

21/10/12

After such a hot day yesterday (40 degrees) it was a surprise to wake to a cold and thundery morning. Lightning was flashing every few seconds and the roar of thunder was almost continuous. It must have been all for show as we got little or no rain in town but the light show and thunder lasted most of the morning. We rugged up and drove to the small town of Silverton, 25kms from Broken Hill.

Silverton was once a mining town, but when the ore ran out the town started to die. It received a bit of a boost in the late 1970's when the Mad Max movies were shot on location there. Other movies like ‘A Town like Alice’, ‘Razor Back’ and ‘Quigley Down Under’, to name a few, used Silverton and its buildings for location shots.

There are not many of the old buildings from the original town left, but those few that are left have been restored to differing degrees and now house cafes, art galleries and museums.

The original pub is still operating. At its height there were 11 hotels in town. Now there is only one and what a pub it is! The only other old hotel that matched Silverton's atmosphere and quirkiness in our travels so far, was the Daly Waters Hotel. I have had a beer in each. There are photographs all over the walls of actors and film crews from all the different movies that have used the Silverton Hotel at one time or another. In every film it has a different name.

Parked outside the hotel is the original black falcon hardtop, 'The Interceptor', driven by Mal Gibson in ‘Mad Max’. Scattered throughout town are other relics from ‘Mad Max’ and other movies. We visited a couple of art galleries, but the standard had been set yesterday and none of the art matched the quality of Jack Absalom's.

From Silverton we drove a few kilometres west to the Mundi Mundi lookout. The lookout is on top of the last ridge before the start of the vast Mundi Mundi Plains. The view is nothing other than spectacular! There is nothing but flat land stretching away to the far horizon and on a clear day the North Flinders Ranges are visible 148kms away. It is so flat that the elevation of the lookout allows the viewer to witness the curvature of the earth. The view extends past a person’s peripheral vision it is so vast. Has anyone got the impression we liked this spot?

From the lookout we drove a few more kilometres and visited the Umberumberka Water Reservoir. It is one of the water storage dams that supplies Broken Hill with its water. We had lunch there and enjoyed the views.

We drove back to Silverton and stopped at the Beyond 39 Dips Visitor Information Centre. It is named after the number of dips in the road from Broken Hill to Silverton. I only counted 35. I must have missed some small ones. On the way out of town we stopped at Penrose Park which is a caravan park/park and was a popular spot for weekend picnics around the early 1900's.

We drove back over the 39 dips to Broken Hill and then went to the Pro Hart Gallery where there is an extensive display of Pro Hart paintings. We had a look at the paintings and watched a DVD on Pro Hart’s life. Sadly, he passed away in 2006.