Easter 2012 – Day 14
An early (well, not really early) morning trip to the tourist info centre for some maps & brochures on the area, is going to be a nice day , around 29 degrees.
We left for Day Dream Mine tour located 33km from Broken Hill out towards the township of Silverton. The road was unsealed & gated so we can finally say we actually went off road this trip. We reached the mine area, which had old relics of machinery on display and were advised that they were just about ready to start a tour – lucky timing for us. So we all put our trusty hiking boots on ( sturdy footwear essential) & signed in – for OHS. We were taken on a quick tour around the surface area by our guide Boss Kevin who called every man boss & every female cookie, kids were small bosses or small cookies, we viewed different plant life found in the are such as Deadly Nightshade & poppy, and some fenced off mine shaft entrance’s. We were also shown a ruin section of the living quarters- most men usually slept sitting up due to lung issues. There was also a section for the single men as well, tiny entrances along the front facade of the building which made it look like a shanty town – luckily most were Cornish and short enough to fit. We then donned our belts, batteries & lights & set off down the mine for a hard days labour seeing the harsh working conditions the miners worked in . The entrance was quite steep and small, once down you had to bend slightly over so not to hit your head and hang on to the hand rail while carefully navigating your steps down the narrow, sparsely lit corridor.. Once fully down in the mine we past various mined corridors and shafts .The original miners would have had to use a pick while lying on their backs, very slowly making the area a little larger- boys as young as 10 worked in the mine, they worked 12 hour shifts 6 days a week. We saw some of the old equipment used and had a blackout when the lights were turned off for a moment before a candle was lit showing the light conditions that was originally used . We saw a section of unprocessed silver still in the wall of rocks, before heading back to the surface thru the small tunnels constantly bumping your head – thank goodness for hard hats. We had to stop for 4 minutes a few meters from the surface to acclimatize, like when diving. Once back up top we were shown where we had walked, which was only about 10% of the mine. It was quite warm, about 30 odd. We signed out & stayed on for lunch – scones & jam.
Next stop Silverton where shows such as Mad Max 2, A Town like Alice , Pricilla Queen of the desert & Mission Impossible 2 were filmed. We drove thru the centre of town before heading out to the Mundi Mundi look out which was only 5km out of town. You could see to the horizon, everything was so flat, it was very picturesque.
A stop at the Silverton Hotel where Mad Max 2 was filmed, taking a few shots of the vehicles used in the film. Brendan liked the horse tether area for some reason.
Then onto the Mad Max 2 museum where there were walls of pictures of the cast, costumes, props etc, as well as a narrated film talking about all the things that happened while shooting – ie both of the top stunt men were injured and couldn’t finish the film
On the way out of town we saw donkeys and camels roaming the pastures nearby.
A stop for a guided camel ride was a must, this was a first for Brendan and he seemed to enjoy it- the flies were really bad, though we had around 30 on each leg alone !
Once we arrived back into Broken Hill we drove out to the Royal Flying Doctors centre – I navigated the streets well ! We were just in time and caught the last tour for the day. We saw a short film, and were given a talk on the area that is covered as well as being shown the day by day procedure’s that take place before viewing a few of the planes in the hanger. We walked thru the museum section reading about past incidents & seeing some of the old equipment which was used.
We couldn’t go to the School of the air as it was closed for school holidays.
A stop at the local woollies to top up a few essentials and back to the caravan park to freshen up
We went to tea at the Democratic Workers Social Club.
