Around 5.30pm the train arrived in Broken Hill described in my DK Eyewitness Guide to Australia as "the unofficial centre of the outback New South Wales. Broken Hill is a mining town perched on the edge of the deserts of inland Australia". The town was established in 1883, when vast deposits if zinc, lead and silver were discovered in a 4 mile long "Line of Lode" by the then fledgling company Broken Hill PTY Ltd and has since grown into a major town and BHP has become Australia's biggest Corporation.
Broken Hill's now declining mining industry is still evident, slag heaps, or mullocks' as they are known locally, are everywhere, and the streets are named after metals. The DK Guide informs me that 'the town's gritty character and barren surroundings have inspired many artists' and today there are over 20 art galleries featuring the work of these local desert artists.
The origin of the town's name is interesting. In 1844, the explorer Charles Sturt saw and named the Barrier Range, and at the time referred to a "Broken Hill" in his diary. The broken hill that gave its name to the town consisted of several hills that appeared to have a break in them. This broken hill no longer exists, having been mined away!! Reminiscent of the 'Lookout Hill' at Kalgoorlie that I mentioned in a previous post as being prepared to be 'mined away'!
There are two interesting buildings shown in one of the photos above. The first on the extreme left of the photo is the dramatic Line of Lode Miner's Memorial. The NSW Government Tourist website describes this "striking architecturally designed memorial,…. opened in 2001, has the name of each (Of the 800) miners who perished (over the years) etched into freestanding glass panels within the high, rust-red steel walls'. This website goes on to describe the "spectacular views from the summit of the gigantic hill or mullock on which the memorial is built (in essence a 30m-high pile of mining waste material)". The other building on this 'mullock' is the Broken Earth Restaurant with the 'wing roof' again offering amazing panoramic views over the town.
A final interesting fact is that the extensive daily hours of sunshine in the town made it ideal for Solar Energy generation and in 2016 a 53-Megawatt solar farm was completed - one of the largest at the time in Australia.
As we slowly negotiated our way through Broken Hill, I reflected on the fact that in this year alone I had flown directly over the town on my outward and return flights from New Zealand and would do so again on my return from Sydney, so, no longer just a name that came up on the flight path displayed in the aircraft.
