We then headed off on the Silver City Highway towards Broken Hill. A journey that was around 265 kms. Very interesting trip for us as we saw hundreds and hundreds of wild goats grazing alongside the highway. It was whilst driving this highway that John delegated to me the job of waving to oncoming caravans. I must say that this becomes very tedious as there are so many caravans on the road so John said we must start discriminating against pop-top caravans and only wave to those pulling decent sized caravans and R.V's !
We settled in to the River View Caravan Park (can only see a tiny bit of water) then after booking a City Sights and Heritage tour for tomorrow, we drove to Silverton ,an essentially abandoned settlement 25 kms from Broken Hill. It was the largest township to exist in the Barrier Ranges before the discovery of the Broken Hill field in 1883. The first discoveries of silver for the very early mines in the area were recorded in 1882 and Silverton itself served as a commercial centre for those early mines which had all ceased operation by 1894. Silverton's population at its peak was 4,000 people. We did a tour of the very interesting Gaol Museum, the gaol having been built in 1889. The museum housed many artefacts etc. of the life and times during the mining period of Silverton. There are only a few buildings left standing, a hotel, 2 churches and a couple of residences. We drove 5ks west of Silverton to the famous Mundi Mundi Plains. A wonderful unending view of the plains where a couple of Australian movies had been filmed - Mad Max and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. We then stopped for a browse around the cemetery that has graves dating from 1884.
Early to bed tonight as we have an early start for our tour in the morning.
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