Down under and back again: Broken Hill outback trip!

Back again! The updates take so long because it takes me quite some time to write them (of course, I'll keep on writing anyway!). I made it to the assignment deadlines, but more are coming up and with all weekends occupied with travelling, scheduling is one of the skills I have to improve over here :) Next weekend, Defqon Australia! VERY much looking forward to it, the line-up kicks ass! Absolutely brutal. And, unexpectedly, Sharlen is in Sydney as well this weekend so I'll actually get to see something of the city as well!

Sooo, almost two weeks ago we went on the Spirits of the Outback tour, an outback (didn't guess that right?) trip to old mining cities and the outback, organized by the Australian Idol course for exchange students. Even though I don't do the course, being an exchange student was apparently enough!

On the first day, we spent most of our time on the bus, as Broken Hill is situated more than 800 kilometres from Melbourne. It was less of a struggle than anticipated though, as the busses were really comfortable! At around 10pm we arrived in Broken Hill, where we stayed in our own "apartment" in the West Darling "Hotel" (more on that later).

On the second day, we first had a little self-guided tour around Broken Hill, a mining city named after the "Broken Hill", which actually doesn't exist anymore (mined away). Led by prospects of welfare, Broken Hill was at some point the 3rd largest town in New South Wales. It has a lot of history and also quite some memorials to that history. Furthermore, we went to the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the doctor association that covers all remote areas all over Australia. The work that these people do is extremely important and reliant on donations and funding. It's free of charge for people who need it! They do emergency rescues, but also general doctors appointments, dental care etcetera.
In the afternoon we went to Silver Mine, where we got to know some stuff about life as a miner, which was extremely tough. Exhausting work, bad living situations and diseases resulting from that. Most people didn't make it past 40, and the worst thing is, this life was usually better than where they came from! We also went into the mine, which was really cool to do. It was quite narrow and even though it was interesting for an hour, it must've been awful spending most of your days in there.

After the mine we went to the Outback Sculpture Park to watch the sunset, which was beatiful, looking out over the stretched plains of the outback. In the evening we went to the Barrier Social Democratic Club, some sort of mash-up of a cafe, casino, music stage and restaurant. Quite a bizarre place, but it was nice in a way. When we got back, we found some lovely gigantic cockroaches on our room (hence the "hotel" part, besides the fact that the whole first floor had to share 3 showers and 2 toilets or so). After trying to make sure they didn't walk about, we decided to try to get to sleep because we couldn't do much about it anyway.

On the third day, we decided to ask the owner of the hotel about the roaches. She told us they were the flying, clean cockroaches (THEY FLY?!?!?!) and that we didn't have to worry (the owners were really nice people, something that's worth mentioning!). We got some insect spray as well which we applied at some spots to make sure they wouldn't go into our room. This turned to be wrong, as we had to hunt them down in the evening anyway...
Anyway, on this day we first went to the Pro Hart (an artist from Broken Hill) gallery and the Miners Memorial Line of Lode, a memorial overlooking Broken Hill that is dedicated to all miners that passed away while doing their jobs. A beautiful memorial.
During lunch, we went to Silverton, a "ghost town" that once inhabited about 3000 people, and nowadays not more than 100. It's a popular filming location apparently (Mad Max, Mission Impossible II).
In the afternoon, we went to the Eldee Outback Sheep station, a sheep farm that also serves as accomodation for travellers. There we watched a sheep dog demonstration and we hiked Mt Eldee for a sunset.This was tough, but very rewarding as again, the view was amazing. The pictures can't grasp it's beauty really (and unfortunately, as I'm not able to really share it with you). In the evening, we had a campfire BBQ and we had a look at the stars, which is mindblowing. When I see 5 stars back home, it's a lot. Here in the middle of nowhere, there were uncountably many, if was amazing. Unfortunately, it was impossible for us to make decent pictures of this.

On the fourth day, we went to Mungo National Park, featuring 17 ancient dry lakes that dried up about 18000 years ago. Over here, both Mungo man and Mungo lady were found, the oldest remains of people in Australia. Funny fact: on the map it says Lake Mungo as well, and the guides regularly see people showing up with surfboards and swimming gear. They only find desert and stretching outback.
At this national park, we had a little tour around, which was shortened because of the heat (it was 30+ degrees). After this, we went to Mildura, where we got to a new hotel that was amazing compared to the West Darling. In the evening, we had pizza AND pasta dinner (how much better can it be?!) and we went to the Mildura Brewery, a brewery+bar where they serve a really diverse selection of beers (chocolate stout!). i have to try some of those some other time, as I had a really bad cold during the trip, making sure I only tasted half of everything, if any. Great timing.

On the fifth, and final, day, we went to the last surprise activity before heading home. However, we promised to not tell anyone about this as it's supposed to remain a surprise for coming years, but the people back home will see some pictures eventually :)

After all, I can say that the trip was definitely worth going! Mining is a huge industry over here and the outback is such a big part of Australia, it was really worth going there. Didn't know where to fit it in, but we spotted some wild kangaroos and emus as well :D Emus somehow always make me laugh. But enough talk, picture time! Not all pictures are mine as we were with a lot of people, credits to Larissa and Kim for some of the pictures below.

Broken Hill