girl talk: ALL THE WAY TO BROKEN HILL

Yep ... this is pretty much the scenery all the way from Mildura to Broken Hill. It was a bit of a novelty at first ... the fact that you could drive & drive and see nothing! Well, not totally nothing ... we did see emus in the wild with their chicks running along behind, that was pretty cute & unique. And, we did see lots of long stretches of road where the heat effect distorted things, that was different.
Broken Hill in all is quite an interesting place, the sort of place that everyone should visit at least once in their lifetime! It definately has the feel of an outback place but
i guess it is not as outback as the real

outback outback (?? you know what i mean!?).
On the first day we were there we went out to the statues at sundown. These are situated on the outskirts of town up on a ridge that is sort of the start of the desert. It was truly beautiful watching the sun set across the horizon and the colours changing on these big stone statues and all that red dirt!
We visited the 'Palace Hotel' in the main street which is where 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' was filmed.
We visited the art gallery which hosts the world's largest painting on canvas - this was really special, it basically
continues around the perimeter of a

full domed room with a boardwalk into the middle of the room and the ground area has been re-created as a desert effect. Very clever!
We went up to the mine area and miner's memorial (which is the brown metal structure behind Mark & Blake in the photo). It is quite bazaar really cause the massive mine is right in the middle of town and basically everything is built around it. When you walk or drive up the main street, the mine is right there towering over everything!
One of the greatest treats at Broken Hill is "Bells Milk Bar". This milk bar is original as per the 50's/60's and still make their own syrups & toppings for old fashioned sundaes, banana splits, sodas, etc. The whole shop, furniture etc is like stepping into a time warp ... and the nut sundaes with pina colada topping YUM!
We actually have photos of our afternoon "pigging out" at the milk bar ... sorry, not sharing these ones, far too embarrassing.
The photo at the bottom with Blake was taken on the 'giant chair' which is also up on top of the mine area where the mine memorial is.
The following day we went out to Silverton which is the ghost town about 25klm out of Broken
Hill. What an awesome place to visit ... sounds rediculous, cause there is really nothing there ... but, the nothing there things (old buildings) have been turned into art galleries, a cafe, the jail museum etc. for tourism ... so there is something there !?*#!! Are you confused again yet?!

Silverton is where the Mad Max Movies were filmed and the pub (which is in operation for tourism trade) still had the Mad Max car parked out the front. The TV series "A Town Like Alice" was also filmed at Silverton and the Pub has been used as a prop in many other shows, commercials etc. The whole history, photos etc. line the walls ... this was pretty cool!
Anyway, I'll post some Silverton pics over the next few days and then this is pretty much 'The End'.
Back to my current life ... just the usual: work, school, housework!

Tommorrow we are off to a funeral for a family friend and old neighbour ... always sad to attend a funeral; however, this also means that you see people you haven't seen for such a long time. It