Broken Hill

Broken Hill sits in isolation just inside the NSW border but shares a timezone with South Australia, which gave us the sense of being close to home. It’s a city bursting with mining history, but for us, it was the history of Grandpa Joddy, who spent his early childhood growing up in the Silver City, that we were most excited to discover.

Dad’s home from the early sixties is still standing, as is the play equipment in the park behind the house, the very same swings and slides that he played on with siblings and neighbours. It was a treat for us all to relive some of his memories.

We climbed up to the historic Junction Mine, which towered over the house and playground and offered fabulous views of the North Mine and the township. After a brief driving tour of other "Joddy" sites, we had lunch at the Zinc Lakes park. Modern signs encouraging the practice of good "lead hygiene" raised questions about young Joddy's practice of catching yabbies in the lakes all those years ago.

In keeping with our history tour we stepped into the 1950's styled Bell's Milk Bar for a "spider" (syrup, soda and ice-cream) in the afternoon, then drove up to the imposing Line of Lode Miners' Memorial, which declares the names and cause of death of all the miners who lost their lives in the service of the Broken Hill mines.

Before setting up camp at the Starview Primitive Campsite in the Living Desert State Park, we braved the biting cold atop the hill to explore the sandstone sculptures as the sun set.

We packed up before breakfast the next morning and drove to the Living Desert picnic area. The kids had breakfast while I had a "sliding doors" moment wandering through the park. A timely phone call precipitated big decisions about the career path I would pursue back in Adelaide.

After a wander through the centre of Broken Hill and a final supermarket shop, we set our sights on South Australia.