Silverton

Silverton is a small village about 25 kms from Broken Hill.

It was once an important place due to the discovery of silver deposits, but was soon eclipsed by Broken Hill.

On the way to get there, a view of the Mundi Mundi plains...


And here we are!




A house here, a church there... there is not much left in the village. As the population dropped, inhabited houses were destroyed, and the material was used for new accommodation in Broken Hill.






There is still a permanent population of about 50 people living there. The place attracts many artists because of the beauty of the landscape.




Some of the historical buildings have been nicely restored...


The Silverton Hotel appears in many commercials and movies.


And there is a little museum with heaps of objects and pictures from past times, giving an idea of the everyday life of early settlers in Silverton and Broken Hill...

They even had a whole collection of pegs, which I fell in love with!

The old gaol... Not really cosy!

And the little hospital...

"Australian sun is especially harsh, but you can preserve your pale complexion"...

In the region, many houses are still in corrugated iron. This was a preferred material, because it was easier to transport than bricks and stone...






This was Silverton... It has a little look of a place for tourists, with all the galleries, but in a way, it has not lost its harshness. It is a very strange place to visit. In today's silent atmosphere, it is hard to imagine that sometime in the 1880s, up to 3000 people lived there.

From Sydney to Broken Hill - a day in the Outback Explorer

Broken Hill is in the outback of New South Wales, a bit more than 1000 kms from Sydney (red dot on the map). Situated on an important mining region, it is known as the Silver City. It feels like an oasis in the middle of the desert, and attracts many artists. There is a direct train twice a week from Sydney to Broken Hill, and it takes about 13 hours to get there.

This is a beautiful trip. Because of the extreme heat (about 47°C), it was longer than expected. The train had to be stopped and sprayed with water in Ivanhoe, and it could never reach its normal travel speed. But the landscape was so great that I never felt bored.

After Sydney and the Blue Mountains, we went through a land of farms and fields.

We stopped in many pretty old stations.

Little by little, it was becoming dryer... The landscape became yellow...

... and patches of red earth appeared now and then.

There where huge farm properties. The grain is processed close to the railway, and loaded directly in the trains.

The colours kept on changing...

It was like an ever-changing painting.

What you cannot see in the pictures is the thousands and thousands of grasshoppers everywhere... The field was moving. I was happy to be in the train!

We passed in front of another train....

but we could never see the end of it.

Many animals on the way... Cows, kangaroos, emus, sheep, goats, kockatoos. Many bones and skeletons too.

It was so cold in the train! The air cond. was at its maximum, so we had to wear trousers and jumpers to get warmer... My neighbour was hiding in her sleeping bag! But when you put your hand on the window, you realise it is boiling.

The Station in Eubalong West... Apart from this, no house could be seen from the train...

And suddenly, it was raining.

Red earth after the rain...

A pink tornado!!!

It was the first of many...
Suddenly, the weather got crazy... We passed through a big dust storm.

It was changing every second... We could not see much anymore.

Then we got out of it...

... and in again! It looked completely surreal.

A prolonged stop at Ivanhoe... We could go out of the train for about 15 minutes. The wind was boiling hot: it was 47°C outside!!

In a few seconds, there was sand everywhere...
And then we left again...

After Menindee, a beautiful sunset...

And we arrived 2 hours late in Broken Hill. It was completely dark, but there was no air at all. After about two minutes out of the train, I was already completely wet with sweat. It was a strange sensation, it was 21.00, but there was absolutely nobody in the streets. Spiders were running everywhere. 10 minutes later, I was at the hostel and jumped immediately in their little pool... That was such a relief!