Inglewood for lunch, and some tempting shopping.

We are staying in Wedderburn for the last few days of our holiday. We are only a few hours drive from home, and should really just keep going as there are plenty of things we would probably be best attending to back there while we have some time off. Nevertheless, we are still officially on holiday, and as such will be remaining in that state of mind for as long as possible!

Wedderburn is a small town with a gold mining heritage*. We have stayed out in the bush here a few times, fossicking, but this time we are staying in the caravan park. We have stayed in lots of caravan parks over the years, some are good, and we go back to them whenever we pass through, some are average. Others are bad and we would avoid them at all costs. This caravan park fits into the good category. We stayed on our way up to Broken Hill as well. The couple who run it, Andrew and Gaye, are lovely and the park is small with nice gardens, and is a short stroll from the main street. It is dog-friendly, which is always a good thing, and Andrew and Gaye are always up for a yack.

When we got here yesterday there was a sign on the front door saying “Out for a while. Choose a site and we’ll see you later” and Andrews phone number. That is our kind of caravan park!

We set up just in time to put the tv on and watch Ford lose the race at Bathurst to Holden. Here is the last lap, the kids and I watched it again just now in the hopes that in this version the Holden would crash. No joy.

Unlike our usual efforts where we tend to holiday off the beaten track, and out of season, the caravan park at Broken Hill was filled with kids on school holidays, so it was something of a shock to our two squids!  They are pretty happy to be the only ones here as it means they get the foosball table in the rotunda to themselves, no feral kids shouting around the caravan at the crack of dawn keeps the Man and I pretty happy too!

As school holidays finished on Monday our kids have been told to keep their noses clean or we’ll enrol them in the local school for a week….

A quiet day in town.

Gaye pointed us towards Inglewood today, telling us it had great second-hand shops. We didn’t need telling twice and decided that we would take the drive out there for lunch (about 28 kms).

It is a town with great historic buildings, many of them with a plaque on the front detailing its individual history. I love it when local organizations go to that much trouble to inform passing tourists.

We stayed in Ouyen earlier in the week, it is a small town and really has no large attraction to keep people around for more than a day. The bakery is famous for its Vanilla Slices, but that is it. Nevertheless, each significant building in town has a fantastic brass plaque with an image of the building and some information about its history. We always look out for those sorts of things and I think that they are the best ones we have ever seen.

In Inglewood this sign was on the front of the butcher. No, it isn’t historic and many other country butchers have similar ones.

Do they do house calls I wonder?

PRIVATE BODIES CUT AND PACKED.

The small handwritten addition underneath was what made us all laugh though.

mother in laws 10c extra a kilo.

We had to buy meat for dinner so that was definitely the shop for us. We didn’t get mother-in-law sausages though. I think they keep them out the back 😉

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The only problem with going to a small country town with great vintage shops is the decision of what to buy. Amazingly, I didn’t buy a single thing. It is not that I didn’t want to, it is just that there were so many things I wanted I couldn’t whittle the list down to an acceptable level!

The kids were overwhelmed with choices and didn’t make a single purchase either, I suspect that there may be a negotiation with our driver (the Man) later in the week and we will return with what remains of our souvenir budget and we will spend freely 😉

The Man did make a purchase though, the Inglewood Emporium (I love that name, call any old shop an Emporium and I’m in) was the best shop there, and had a great section at the back with old tellies and records. Upon entry, the Man zoomed straight up there only to find Moving Pictures 1981 album Days of Innocence just sitting on the top of the nearest stack. In vinyl. For ten bucks.

He clutched it to his chest and did everything but a Woo Hoo! and fist pump… 😀

The song What About Me? is on this album and as a teenager was one of my favourites and a favourite of the Man as well. The video for the song was filmed in a country town and so it is completely appropriate that the Man found the album in a similar one so many years later!

*I have done posts about Wedderburn before; Part 1 and Part 2 and Backyard Gold.

A near miss and an angry lizard.

When we were driving on the road to the Daydream mine the other day the Man pulled over for yet another photo opportunity only for me to almost grab the steering wheel and steer us back into the road.

missed by a nose!

We had pulled over right where a Stumpy Tail lizard was sunning itself, and nearly ran over its head.

They love heat of the roads and are often seen warming up on the sides. Unfortunately they are often seen squashed as well as they are not expecting a car to come zooming along.

This one was lucky that he stayed still as the tyre tracks from our car ran right in front of his nose! I got out to apologize, and take a picture and, unsurprisingly, I got a bad reception.

He put on a good show, standing up tall, well, as tall as a Stumpy Tail can be, hissing and showing his blue tongue and the kids were delighted. They are lovely lizards, this one was just a little more annoyed than the ones we usually see around, for good reason I guess!

(If anyone out there can supply a link to an actual photo of the teeth of one of these guys I would be most grateful. I think that there is a chance they have no teeth/ invisible teeth as my internet trawls have failed to find any views of them whatsoever!)

look how scary I am…. hisssssss……

Wentworth, No power and country music!! Aaaarrrggghhh!

We have finally left Broken Hill and headed off down south again. We are staying in Wentworth, although the caravan park was so packed that not only did we get the very last site, we have no power or water. Oh well, our caravan is self-sufficient (we even have a toilet and shower inside and a shower outside) and has solar panels and a battery. The only problem is that my laptop won’t last too long plugged into the 12 volt!

Back through the cartoon fly line again!

I am searching for an unattended power point to recharge, but until then I will have to share this quick apology, I will reply to all of your comments soon! Sorry!

The only benefit is that we are staying right on the Darling river and the weather is perfect. The downside is the reason the park was full. The town in in full swing for the country music festival. Bands are touring around all the local towns playing, and there are happy music lovers everywhere. The Man doesn’t mind a bit of country, the kids and I hate it.

We got hot chips for lunch yesterday and wandered down to the river to eat only to find a band in full voice. Both number 1 and 2 stopped at the edge of the grass in horror, and one of them was heard to mutter, hands firmly clapped over his ears, “what is that racket?”.

Even though the Man was in possession of the chips and had found a nice shady spot to sit, the kids and I just walked away, off down the river trying to get out of earshot…..

Thank goodness the riverside stage is just on the edge of earshot, although the ocassional boat goes past, blaring a bit of country. Annoyingly the limit for boats in this stretch of river is 4km hr. Or knots, I’m not sure. No matter what it is, it is too bloody slow when the music is loud I tell you! 🙂

I thought I would share this sign the Man noticed on the door of the local pub.

HUSBAND DAY CARE CENTRE

Need time to relax?

Need time to yourself?

Want to go shopping?

Leave your husband with us!

We’ll look after him for you!

You just pay for his drinks!

We got a good laugh out of this but there might not be too much money left for shopping afterwards!

That could cost quite a bit!

The Daydream Mine.

When we were planning this holiday we asked the kids where they wanted to go if they could choose anywhere. They didn’t even think twice and said “the Daydream Mine”. They couldn’t remember where it was, or even if we were ever likely to be in that part of Australia again, but that was the top of their destination list.

Luckily for them the trip to the Daydream Mine was perfectly feasible as it is between Silverton and Broken Hill and we were kind of planning to come this way anyway!

Since we have been in Broken Hill for a week now we thought we had better take the trip out there before we leave, otherwise we would have two broken-hearted kids whining at us all the way home!

Last time we went there was 2 years ago and, like the nearby town of Silverton, there were only a few others on the tour with us and we had the place to ourselves. When we drove up yesterday there were about 20 cars there and people milling around everywhere waiting for their tour to begin. Bugger…. curse their good advertising!

We wandered up to the office and just beat the next arriving carload of people to put our names at the bottom of the list for the next surface and underground tour.

The Daydream Mine is a proper old mine, no above ground machinery, no winches and no safe workplaces for those old miners. All pick and hammer here. The area was very rich in silver, lead and zinc, and in the late 1800’s Cornish miners flocked to the area from the copper mines of Burra in South Australia.

It wasn’t just miners though, they bought their wives and children too. There were no roads to such a remote place so they pushed wooden wheelbarrows full of their belongings the 400 miles here.

No wheelbarrows for us, luckily.

No roads. 400 miles. Wooden wheelbarrow.

Here is a picture of our car parked on the side of their nicely graded, slightly corrugated, 13km long driveway. Can you imagine the life that they had before if they thought packing up their kids and walking 400 miles into the dry unknown was a better option?

(When the miners first arrived here there were trees, but for miles around they were cut down for mine supports, smelter fuel and building material.)

Once they arrived here it wasn’t only the men who worked. The kids were the ones who pushed the carts full of ore to the surface, hauled sacks full of rocks, sorted the ore and cut tree trunks with hand saws for the mine supports. All this for 75c a week. That was not all they got though, working in such a place ensured that they shared in the respiratory complaints that the older miners did, and died young too.

On the surface tour the guide (who was great) showed us the remains of a hut. It was just a stack of stones in a small square which originally had a few logs laid over the top and more rocks stacked on top. There was a photo in the tea-room of one of the guides crouched in the doorway while the roof was still on but now the logs and rocks off the roof had been removed as I can’t imagine anyone going in there after all this time without first putting their affairs in order!

Daydream Mine township ruins map.

This tiny hut had no standing room and no lying room either. It was just a place to keep their cooking utensils and gather at night. They didn’t need any room for beds as their lungs were so riddled with miners complaint (phthisis) that they had to sleep propped up against the walls.

The township here had a population of 500 at its peak, with the obligatory pubs and other places that make people feel civilized. The ruins of the town are still there right across the road from the smelter.

Looking out over the ruins it is hard to imagine so many people living out here. It must have been an unbelievably hard existence.

Daydream Mine township ruins.

After we had heard the story of the workers we all wandered to the shed and were fitted out for helmets and headlights. The mine was dug by people who would be considered small by todays standards and as such the roof was dangerously low for our modern-day heads! It is also unlit, so without headlamps we would be plunged into darkness.

It was very funny to see the group hesitantly step forward to take an appropriately sized belt to buckle the battery for the lamp on to. We had been here before so we knew this would happen, but those in the crowd who were a little weight sensitive were clearly uncomfortable going to the long end of the rack for a larger belt!

Once we were geared up the guide led us to the steps and cautioned us not to touch things, to all stick together, to use the handrail and watch our heads. There is a sign at the top of the steps that warns you that you are about to pass the point of getting a refund, so anyone who wants to back out had better make up their minds right then and there!

Going down into the Daydream Mine.

The steps down are quite steep and the hole in the rock small, if you are claustrophobic you will realize pretty quickly that you are not going to enjoy yourself.

Once in it doesn’t get any better and the handrail comes in very handy! The mine slopes steeply and the roof is low, the kids were having no trouble at all, laughing at our difficulties, while all of the adults were very glad for the helmets, I can’t tell you how many times I banged mine against the roof, and I am by no means tall!

We wandered through tunnels while the guide stopped us at different points and told us stories until we reached a more open (but still small) area that went no further. We all perched on rocks and, lighting a single candle, he asked us to all turn off our headlamps. The original miners dug the 4km of tunnels by candlelight and he showed us how it was dug. A team of men used a sharpened metal bar and hammered it in to make a pattern of deep holes. Black powder was then poured in, a fuse, and the hole was plugged with clay. The fuses trailed out and all ran together, when the handful of them was lit the men ran quickly away hoping that only the bit that they want would fall apart and not the whole mine.

Last time we were here one of the kids on the tour freaked out halfway through and his mum had to take him back to the surface alone. On this tour the whole group made it through without difficulty, although by the time we had made the steep climb back to the top, and up the last few steps, some of the group were wobbly legged and probably wishing they had given up and gone back earlier too!

It was a great tour, the guide had been a miner himself in the big Broken Hill mines. Naturally, number 2 son immediately befriended with him after pointing out a hidden bit of rich ore that had previously escaped his notice during the many tours he had guided.

After we put all of our gear back in the shed we were the last to leave, as usual, as number 2 was pulled aside and the two of them had a good talk about interesting rocks while the rest of the crowd went to sign out. He was given a huge rock full of interesting shapes and colours to take home and, as you can imagine, was totally thrilled.

Daydream mine tea room.

We wandered back to the perfectly decorated office/tea room and bought a drinks and a piece of cake.

As the kids sat down with their soft drinks the bloke who did the tour wandered quietly past and gave number 2 one of the pieces of galena he had sneakily lifted from a display and muttered “put it in your pocket”. Again, a happy kid.

As I mentioned before, the road in to the mine is only 13kms long. It tuns through beautiful arid country and we kept pulling over for the other tourists to zoom past. They were all racing to the next thing and we were just happy where we were.

We pulled over a few times to look at the view or just an interesting bit of ground, it took us ages to get back to the main road. That is how we usually travel through the bush, if you go too fast you will miss out on all the cool stuff. The battery in the Man’s camera ran out halfway back and he was most unimpressed. This led us to returning the next day just to do the drive again!

relaxed kangaroos

Of course that meant we had no other plan for that day, and to drive the 26 km round trip took us hours. Again we constantly pulled over for those rushing past, including one time when we rolled to a stop beside a few kangaroos standing in the scrub. The other car rushed past, totally missing the chance to see them. The day before we had accidentally done the same beside a big, and very angry, Stumpy Tail lizard, nearly running him over!

I don’t understand why everyone drives all this way out to see things and then not actually look for them. What a waste.

We got home just in time for me so sit down and finish this post while listening to the NRL Grand Final on the radio (and the end on the tv). My team the Melbourne Storm got up and kicked the Canterbury Bulldogs winning 14 to 4. GO STORM! What a great day 😀

A big seat, an old chimney, and a sad memory.

This morning we thought we would go and have a look at the tourist centre thing overlooking the town. The building is perched precariously high on the top of the line of lode, and from the streets below it just looks like a building that slid off the back of a truck and landed hanging half off the edge of a big pile of gravel. As you travel around town it pops out from between buildings looking like it will only take the slightest tremor to slide it onto the train line below.

Just waiting for the OH&S guy to take the homemade step away….

Once we got up there we were confronted with a completely unexpected thing. A giant, red, park bench. A nearby plaque explained that it was art so the boys sat down, trying to appreciate it, but we only ended up laughing at its sheer silliness.

Obviously when the artist envisaged this piece he never though of one thing. People actually using it. It’s a chair and all, surely he would have factored in that possibility.

No human could have possibly sat up there without first climbing up on the wobbly bricks some obliging, and more practical, person had piled up on one side.

After a few photos of the kids pulling the kinds of faces a giant red chair deserved we wandered inside. It seemed to consist only of a cafe and a small gift shop, the outside area leading to a miners memorial and other touristy things was shut due to the weather, the winds were pretty strong and we were up pretty high… but, still, annoying… The whole thing looked better from down below when there was the chance it might fall down..

The plaque reads; This fireplace built by Tom Phin and A.W.B Orman May 1885 is part of the first office of the B.H.P.

Afterwards we thought we would look for something we had seen in one of the tourist brochures. There was still a remnant of the original BHP (Broken Hill Proprietory Company) building left in the town in the form of a stone chimney.It wasn’t very well signposted and in the tradition of all crappy tourist maps we pretty much had to guess where it might be. We found it easily but I really don’t think to many people bother to turn up the very short street at the side of the line of lode to see it.

It was just a chimney the same as all the other 1800’s stone chimneys we see on our travels but this time is wasn’t an anonymous pile out in the bush, or a picturesque ruin in someones garden. This was where the biggest mining company in the world began. Yep, BHP Billiton. Richest hole diggers in the world.

I think that anywhere else in the world the chimney would be surrounded by a museum extolling the virtues of the company, here in Broken Hill it is just an old chimney with the top broken and a corrugated iron roof keeping the worst of the weather off.

Once we left the chimney site we went looking for another old mine site, Browne’s shaft. Unlike most of the mine stuff in town that has been placed in a viewing area, this is a place that almost looks like the miners just walked off the job last year.

Browne’s Shaft.

Right next door is the managers house, now a private residence. You look down the shaft and there is a big dark hole. The small cages the miners rode down to the levels are right there, above your head.

It gives the impression that it wouldn’t take much effort to get it all up and running again, and was by far the most interesting mine thing we had seen so far.

 We spent ages wandering around looking at it from all angles and then wandered off into the scrub around it.

The man found a pile of old corings just lying in the spinifex and the kids ran around happily finding bits of old metal, pins and other interesting scrap just scattered around.

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The saddest thing we saw today was these trucks on the side of the road as we were going up to the top of the line of lode. The plaque on the left reads;

To the memory of mullockers

Thomas Jordan aged 19

Leopold Campbell aged 21

Whose bodies remain beneath this spot in the A5 stope, 500 ft level, Central mine

as a result of a fall of rock at 3am 8th October 1902.

Dedicated 8th October 2002.

Lookout lizard. Silverton 2012.

When we were at the Mundi Mundi lookout the other day we naturally did a bit of wandering around in the nearby low scrub, in case we found any treasures.

Luckily for me I saw this little treasure while he was sunbathing on his rock.

He was happy for me to have a look at him for a few minutes, not even bothering to run off even when I called the kids over to have a look. Even me sneaking closer and closer with my camera didn’t alarm him and he was still there when we quietly walked away.

Flat out like a lizard…. ummmm… sunbathing?