Tuesday at Broken Hill

Tuesday at Broken Hill – Still!

I didn’t feel like going for a walk today so I didn’t. Greg felt a little better but didn’t look 100% so I elected to stay one more night.

Last night I had been reading all the interesting things you can do in Broken Hill and I had made a list on my phone. So after showers and putting the sheets on to wash – and hang out to dry – in the great big, wonderful, non lint dispensing, front loading washing machine, we started my list. First though a fruit breakfast to follow on from our vegetarian dinner. How healthy.

We made our way with Mrs GPS telling us where to go in her precise way to the Broken Earth Café Restaurant. This is perched right up the top of a mine on a slag heap and gives the best views of Broken Hill. It also has a gift shop where, on the way to the ladies room, I found Tshirst for my nieces on special. So I bought them. The loos were very clean and new (posh pee) and the coffee was lovely. The view was terrific and outside they had this really big artwork in the form of a chair that looked like a park bench so I sat on it and Greg took a photo. What a cheesy, touristy thing to do. Around the place were various bits of old machinery used in mines and it was very interesting. It was also windy and really cold in spite of the nice sunshine so we didn’t stuff around too long outdoors. On to the next point of interest.

Next on Caz’s tour of Broken Hill was some culture. We stopped by the Trades Hall building and viewed their display of union history. The building is really old, and beautifully restored so we took a few photos. Then my cousin phoned me and we had a chat about small business so I didn’t get to read much more of the display.

Outside again and in front of a civic building are the 7 busts of the founders of Broken hill – so we looked at that. Saw it, ticked the box on to the galleries.

Broken Hill is famous for its art. Pro Heart and Russell Drysdale did a lot of their works here. There are art galleries all over the place. We picked two. The first one was the Silver City Mint and Art Gallery which is supposed to have this great big painting in it – world’s largest acrylic painting on canvas. So we chose this gallery. They had some nice works and some cheesy works and really cool bull ants, emus, lizards etc to put in your garden. We were going to see the big picture but it was $7.50 each to go in. So we found a post card and looked at that instead. We were not that fussed on the artist’s style so it didn’t matter to us. There is also a chocolate shop and jewelers shop and I found some Budrim ginger lollies which are my favourite and cannot find anywhere. I bought lollies in the gallery and we left to find the next one.

The next one was the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery and it had some much better works in it. There was also some very ordinary photos – in my opinion. Why someone would want to print an enormous photo of an aboriginal child with snot hanging out of its nose and hang it in a gallery stumps me – all I wanted to do was feel sick.

However the next room was another lot of artworks without snot of local street scape photos, taken recently and a long time ago. One is superimposed in one section on the other and it looks really effective. We enjoyed that. Then upstairs was another gallery. The staircase itself was  beautiful. There were some old Heidelburg school artists up there so we enjoyed that.

Culture part over on the Caz’s tour of that over we went back to the van for lunch. Toasted sandwiches in the sandwich press.

After lunch we did a bit of photos and blogging and then got back in the car and went to the Bells Milk Bar. Stopping via the washing line to get the sheets off in case we were late back. This historic place has been in Broken Hill since the 40’s or 50’s and they have some interesting memorabilia in it about the history of milk bars around Australia and the role they played – these are the café style milk bars not the corner store ones. Anyway it was very interesting and of course I had to have a small thick shake as that’s what you do. Greg had a coffee. I got a bellyache from drinking cold milky stuff and that was that.

Then we went back to the information centre to ask where a camping store was so we could buy a lantern for the van. After waiting for a while as they were busy. Found that there was one up the other end of the town. We went there and selected a nice Coleman kick arse camping lantern that can be charged up several ways and you can even put normal batteries in it. That sorted our light problem in the van.

The final point of interest and apparent must see of Broken Hill is the living sculpture. This collection of stone sculptures sit out of town a ways and up on a hill. Its best to go there at sun set so you can see the sun on the stone and its supposed to be an awe inspiring sight for all. We ventured out to the site, guided by tourist signs rather than Mrs GPS and drove up the driveway. There is a walk and a drive. We decided to drive to the site rather than walk as we wanted to take photos and didn’t feel like lumping all our gear.

The actual car park was MILES away from where we paid the cheery lady $10 to get in. She was so cheerful for what must be one of the most boring jobs you can do. Stand under a 3 ways covered in shed and take $10 off whoever happens to be going in. Anyway we drove for about 10 minutes on a one way sized but was actually a 2 way bitumen road. It got quite steep in parts and one wondered how the little tour busses cope with it.

Once at the top, it was find a hat and coat and step out to the wonderments of the Outdoor Sculpture Symposium. There was a family up there of two little girls and a mother. The mother was making so much noise to her kids who weren’t taking any notice of her. As I walked up the path one of the brats yelled, “stop you can’t go here”. To which I just glared at her in my cranky face and walked around her. It was tempting to push her over but I resisted. The mother didn’t bat an eye. Apparently being rude to people is totally fine. All the mother said to her children was to smile as she was taking photos of them.

So leaving the rude children family behind, we walked up to the structures which I must say were not as spectacular as I was hoping. Each had a display board of the artist and what they hoped you could get out of looking at their work. 

There was one sculpture that had hand patterns carved into it and some swirly stuff and that was this bloke’s dedication to his son.

The only one of any interest was an Aztec art inspired sculpture and that’s only because its got a circle with a hole in it at one side and you can get the sun to peep through the hole – which looking at it like that’s not good for your eyes but it is interesting.

We took a few photos, my camera battery went flat as we hadn’t changed it yet from Mungo. Then with the sun nearly set we got in our car just as others were arriving to view the site and left. It was really tricky negotiating the narrow and winding road back to the cheerful lady with the boring job. Some  people, desperate to view the last of the day’s rays on the sculptures had left their run a bit late and were speeding a little too fast for the conditions. This is where having a fat lady land cruiser with a whapping big black bull bar on front that says very politely,  “I’m sorry but I was here first any you can grow some manners please and wait”, is really handy.

We went back home to the little van and I cooked up some honey soy chicken legs in the electric frypan. The van is so small that if I wanted to do some veg, I would have had to put the frypan on the floor so it was all too hard and we just had chicken. The cramped conditions were starting to get to us.

Later that night when I went to upload my photos on the blog, I discovered that Greg has lost or deleted them. All my hard work into my photos all gone without a trace. I got really cross. Greg went to bed. I kept working, eventually going to bed really upset that I could not see my photos or use them in the blog. I was absolutely angry, pissed off and annoyed.

And whats more we are leaving tomorrow whether you feel good or not!

And that was Tuesday.