Days 7 - 9

 Day 7:

After a peaceful night's sleep, we packed up and headed into town for our walking tour.

Terry was our guide and over the next three hours, he told us stories about a wide range of histories of the town: mining, silver, art, working unions, train lines, trees, and so much more. Not that I've ever really looked into the history of Broken Hill or thought about it much (other than the drag queen ad of course!) but I was quite shocked about how forward thinking people living in this town were. The mining union stuff was very strict and there were some very long strikes, and say what you will about unions and strikes, but essentially the miners of Broken Hill paved the way for a 35 hour work week, paid holiday leave and were at the forefront of what is now workplace health and safety.

If I could remember all that Terry said, I'd be here for ages writing it all down. It's probably a blessing for you (and for me!) that I am not very good at retaining information. All I can say is that if you are passing through Broken Hill, spend a couple of days here. Ideally not a Sunday and a Monday as many things are closed, but we still had a good time!

After all that walking and learning, we were very hungry, so we stopped for some lunch and then headed out to the Royal Flying Doctors Service Outback Herirage Experience, where we learnt yet more things that I can't really remember, ha ha! It was a fascinating look at the history of the RFDS; how John Flynn started it all and the amazing inventions that Alfred Traeger produced to aid in long distance communication, like a pedal powered Morse code machine. There were lifesize models of the different planes that have been used over the years, and a video of people telling their stories of when they've had to use the RFDS. It was a really interesting couple of hours.

We then decided that as we'd had a cooked lunch we didn't really need a cooked dinner (I just didn't want to deal with the moths again, really) so we just grabbed some snacky things and headed back to camp. We were going to do a walk, but when we got there it was closed for the day, so we just had some tea, played some cards and waited for darkness to descend and the flies to go away.

Day 8: 

We did that cultural walk before we left the state park (no snakes this time), which was very enjoyable, and then had lunch near the memorial to the 800 miners that have died working at the various Broken Hill mines.

Me with some Aboriginal story poles local students had made

Some miners and their dog taking a break by their mineshaft. I love the art stuff that's just randomly here!

We drove to Wentworth to see where the Murray snd Darling rivers meet. Not much to see to be fair, but here's a picture:

We then headed to Mildura, which felt like a bustling metropolis after all these small and tiny towns we've been through! We needed a few things from Bunnings and BCF, so ducked in there and then headed for our free camp-site for the night, which was right on the bank of the Murray river. It was very picturesque apart from the jetskis bombing past!

Our riverside view

Fly nets were one of first things we grabbed at BCF. Don't I look hot?!

Day 9:

The temperature really dropped in the mid morning and I wished I had jeans on instead of shorts! We had a little wander around the more historic part of town, before grabbing some lunch - delicious pizza. We had the "Nonna's Favourite" which had pineapple on. Does that answer the long running detate? 

We decided that we weren't too fussed about Mildura, so we made plans to go down to Murray Sunset National Park and camp by a pink lake called Lake Crosbie. It was about a two and a half hour drive down. It's a gorgeous little spot and as the sun was going down, a red kangaroo hopped right across our vista. I didn't get footage of that, but this is the vista:

The lake doesn't look terribly pink there, but just you wait!!

Chris looking hot in his fly net

Me cooking in rather windy conditions