Today we drove out to Silverton which is a small town about 30 kms from Broken Hill.
The town was originally a large mining centre but now only consists of a pub, a few cafes, galleries and picturesque ruins. The only claim to fame that Silverton has these days is that it is on the edge of the start of nothingness, and, therefore a good place to shoot movies that need an end of the world look.
Lots of pretty average movies have been filmed here, but I expect that the best known are The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Mission Impossible II.
No matter how many other movies will be made here the one people most immediately associate with the town would have to be Mad Max II. The townsfolk are milking this association for all it’s worth too. We came here about 2 years ago and there were only a few cars in town and we had the old prison/museum to ourselves. Today there were cars everywhere (including a group of classic car owners parked at the pub), a new Mad Max museum, and the few places serving food were packed.
So much for the interesting ghost town 😦 If we ever come this way again I expect there will be a Max’s Burgers and a hotel.
If you are Australian and have testosterone, or associate with a person who has, you likely have seen Mad Max I and II (number III was crap, no shame if you avoided it…). If you are a man of a certain age I think it is a legal requirement of citizenship to have a copy on dvd too, I might be wrong about this though 😉
If you have not been exposed to this apocalyptic classic I will finish with a clip of the start of the movie which pretty much sums up the entire thing. Conveniently, it ends with Max scooping up the precious fuel at the Mundi Mundi lookout.
Apparently Mundi means flat. When you stand on the low hills here (or in the middle of the road as I did) all you can see to the distant horizon is mundi, as shown below.
Only mundi as far as the eye can see…..
Of course, this movie was made back in 1981, in the days when Mel Gibson was a young eager bloke looking to be a star. Unfortunately, now he has proved to be a racist, sexist, crazy person. So disappointing….
Believe it or not, we only saw Mad Max a few years ago. I must say, after all the hype I was disappointed, maybe they were good back in the day, but they don’t go the distance (not in my book) plus it was completely different to what i was expecting…
Speaking of movie sets, we’ve been past the pub for Croc Dundee more times than I care to mention (and I typically forgot the name of it right now) and has something been shot at Cooper Pedy, when we went through there were objects that looked like they were off some weird sci-fi movie set.
I have photos of the kids standing with that spaceship at Coober Pedy, I am not sure why it is there but all small towns would be better for an alien invasion, good for tourism I’m sure!
Mad Max was one of those films that was great for its time and can only be appreciated through the veil of a petrol-soaked, misspent youth! If you were expecting something different though that would certainly detract from it.
Mad Max? Nah, give me Priscilla Queen of the Desert any day. Guess it kinda ruins my chances of citizenship in Aus, but what can you do?
Funnily enough I have never seen Priscilla… I will have to get to it one day! Oh well, at least now if NZ ever sinks beneath the waves you know the secret to getting into Aus, just pack a copy of Max I and II into your luggage and they will let you right through, no questions 😉
lmao – sci-fi ladies without testosterone love Mad Max as well. 😀 Besides, back then Mel Gibson was seriously tasty eye-candy. The landscape around Silverton is not… something I’d want to look at on a daily basis though. Ugh, how can anyone live in such a bleak place? Even for Australia this is Bleak!
The spunky young leather-clad Mel in Mad Max I was what no doubt led him to legion of female fans!
Even though there is nothing to look at around Silverton you just can’t stop looking at it. The massive emptiness just sucks you in and it really is beautiful. It is a bit like Ayres Rock, that is just a big rock in a thousand miles of nothingness, but you still can’t drag your eyes away from it!
I hope I get to see it one day. I have the Rock on my list already 🙂
I loved the Flinders Ranges more than Ayres Rock (just in case you have a choice). The rock is great but the beautiful Flinders surprises you at every turn.
To be honest what I’d really like to see is the Finke River – and yes I know it’s dry 🙂 And Palm Valley? I haven’t looked at my notes in years but I think that’s near the Alice somewhere. Ah well, one day.
Keep buying tatts tickets and wishing… that is our plan anyway 😉
lol – I never win anything! I think I’ll just save up my pennies.;)
Yeah, that’s our plan A too. The Tatts plan B is just a dream. Of course we are hoping at least one of the kids might become rich and famous so we have made them promise ‘to keep us in the manner to which we wish to become accustomed’.
Hi dad if you are reading this, yes, we stole your line 🙂
I live in hope too. 😉
Your ‘mundil’ inage is awesome. Silverton on our to do list also, [and Mungo National Park, if you’re looking for inspiration ;)] The G.O. fulfills his legal requirement to own Mad Max 1 & 2 – they were movies truly of their time, but still enjoyable, and yes 3 was a disappointment, as is Mel.
Thank you 🙂 I realized once I watched the clip that the spot where Max is standing at the end is pretty much exactly where I took the picture from. We would love to go to Mungo (on the to-do list) but it is a national park and we have the dog with us… oh well, another time…..
Even though Silverton is getting quite commercial it is well worth the trip, it is still an amazing place. Mel playing the young Max Rockastansky was definitely worth watching, the new older Mel is just wrong 😦
I am glad to hear that the G.O. is legal, can I ask if he also admits to owning the movies Stone and Running On Empty too? 🙂
Ah, yes…you have read the G.O. well. He has both Stone & Running on Empty, and as many of the other Australian icon movies he can find in the bargain bins 🙂
I can’t tell you how thrilled the Man was when Running on Empty came out on dvd, it was just about the time his VHS copy was dying 😉 Gotta love blokes getting to re-live their youth, well, a version of, not necessarily the truth, on telly…
I was so disappointed when I watched the special features of Stone, the main character was completely the opposite of the character he played and spoke with such disdain about people who lived that way. I expect that there were a lot of actors who would have happily played that part and not whined about how horrible it was afterwards!
That road shot you took is gorgeous! I am really enjoying your vacation. I hope that’s okay!
I have an inordinate amount of shots taken from the middle of the road in remote spots. I just can’t help myself 🙂 They rarely turn out badly, no skill required!
I am SO pleased that you are following along with us on holiday, I though I might only be posting for the family for a few weeks!
Nope! I think you’ve captured the imaginations of your readers!
Would you consider some day posting a story featuring your middle of the road pictures? They sound so poetic!
Gosh, posting photos like that would mean I have to do some kind of sorting and arranging of my thousands of pictures. A job that I really should have done when I was downloading them. Hmmmm… I will do my best to dig out some of them for you, can’t promise anything though!
I am hopeless with a digital camera, I can take hundreds in a day (no joke). The part I love the most is the taking of the photo. Afterwards I pretty much dump them into my computer and barely ever look at them again. I might single out a few for saving into a different file for future reference, but that’s about it!