Highlights of Broken Hill

 Today was really interesting as we firstly visited the Royal Flying Doctor's Service. It is the largest base in Australia and the area they service with health care is huge. After an interesting tour and film about the service we saw them working on servicing the planes.
  After lunch we visited one of Australia's most interesting bushmen- Jack Absalom. He's a very interesting man and has spent years in the outback painting the scenery. We had several of his DVD's about survival in the outback so we were thrilled to meet him at his gallery.

 Our afternoon was spent visiting Silverton which was settled in 1881. There are still many of the original buildings to see and it is a well-known place to film many movies set in deserts such as Priscilla Queen of the Desert and Mad Max.

 I also spent some time wandering around the cemetery and it was a very hard life in the early days with many gravestones for children. Apparently Thyphoid was common and many young men also died from mining accidents. Broken Hill is still a operating as a mine of silver, lead, and zinc and BHP was named after Broken Hill. They are still mining 2 km under the town. Tomorrow we are off on the next part of our trip to Corner Country and we won't have access to internet or hot showers for a few days so I'll check in when we are back in internet range.
Thanks for stopping by.
Cheers, Jan Mac

Three States in One Day

 Our first night was spent at a bush camp halfway between Mildura (Vic) and renmark (Sth A.) We really enjoy the peace and quiet of camping out bush and our new camper makes it very easy to have a good night's sleep. We are completely self-sufficient and have solar panels for power. The second day of travel saw us going trhough three States in the day. We are traveling to the junctions where the States meet and tried to visit the junction between the States of Victoria, NSW and Sth Australia. The actual site is under dispute as the origianl surveryor was inaccurate in his measurements. Unfortunately we weren't able to find the small cairn as it is on private land.
From Renmark we took the back dirt roads to join the Silver Highway which runs from Wentworth to Broken Hill. We really enjoyed the trip and saw lots of emus, a fox, sheep, cattle and wild goats. We also stopped to test the water of some waterholes near the roadside. the water was very salty and not drinkable by the stock.
  Broken Hill was the stop for our second night and we spent today looking at the sights of Broken Hill and surrounding country.

Cheers, Jan Mac

Getting Ready

This photo shows our new rig on our recent trip to Tasmania. Now we are off to Cape York via Birdsville and we have added a snorkel, lift kit, front and rear lockers, a winch and driving lights as well as a long range fuel tank.While all the modifications were happening we've been busy making lists and getting the gear ready.
I'll show more photos tomorrow.
Cheers, Jan Mac