Sweet Wayfaring

Palace Hotel and mine tailings, Broken Hill Let me hasten to mention that Broken Hill is one town who’s raison d’etre is not a river – it’s mining. You will understand how much mining pervades this city when you realise the image above is taken looking across the main street to the next parallel street.

End of Day 2, near Broken Hill Clearing showers I think is what the weather bureau calls it.  As we near Broken Hill to set up camp for the evening the sky is clearing nicely.  We are going to have a lay day exploring Broken Hill tomorrow and it will be nice if it isn’t raining. I’ve decided to make a sky series at the end of each day on this trip.

Desert flowers, Broken Hill  Just before Broken Hill the fruit fly protection zone begins.  All fruit and veg must be disposed of in the bin.  So we stopped to gobble up what was left and throw away a few remnants. I took the opportunity for a short walk among the desert plants. It might look arid but there are tiny hardy flowers everywhere, not visible until you get out and take a closer look. 

Going west the trees get shorter and shorter and their leaves smaller and tougher.  Then the trees thin out to the point where there are none. Last time I was out this way I was overwhelmed by the redness of the land but it is so green at the moment the bare earth is hardly visible.

Supermarket, Wilcannia When I tell you this is the local supermarket, one of the few shops in town that is open I guess you get the idea. Even the pub, which is also open has its windows boarded up.  We heeded the plea “It’s worth the walk” to go visit the takeaway for lunch but found it out of business so after buying a few rations at the Friendly Grocer we went back to the service station over the road (where petrol costs a fortune) to have very good hamburgers to fortify us for the next leg of the journey.    Shop next door to the supermarket

Watch the slideshow first, it doesn't loop. Derelict buildings, Wilcannia (slide show) And this is the face of Wilcannia that intimidates people, even when the streets are almost empty with just a few smiling locals ambling about.  I have shown you many old towns with similar shambolic buildings, but there are rather a lot here.  The slide show is but a sample of the more picturesque derelict buildings (some of which are probably occupied) and to be fair to the town there are also neat houses with tidy gardens but I generally don’t photograph the ordinary.

Wool store and below other colonial buildings Dating from its heydays in the late 1800s when Wilcannia was a busy inland port, there are many wonderful colonial buildings. Such a surprise to see out here in this isolated and quite arid part of the state. This alone is enough to give the town great charm.