BROKEN HILL – THE AUSTRALIAN TRAVELLER GUIDE

The Silver City is a place overflowing with outback soul and adventure right on its doorstep, writes Jessica Schumann Drenched in light, vast blue skies and clear nights ablaze with stars, Broken Hill is a Mecca for artists and is a culture hub in its own right. Situated just 50km from the South Australian border, the affectionately named Silver City is rich with authentic experiences, artefacts waiting to be discovered, and an overflow of nationally significant heritage. Broken Hill will greet you with classic outback hospitality, impressive history and a powerful punch of breathtaking beauty. It is one of the...

Where is it? 20km West of Broken Hill, on Silverton Road How to see it for yourself? To get to Silverton from Broken Hill, drive for about 20 minutes along Silverton Rd. Why I love it “The colour of the sand matches the colour of the rusting car, which is embedded in the most amazing landscape in the NSW outback. It’s a must-see!” – Hartmut Toepler Image by Hartmut Toepler...

Where is it? 29km west of Broken Hill, 4km west of Silverton How to see it for yourself? Drive from Broken Hill along Silverton Rd, following signs to the Mundi Mundi Lookout. Why I love it “From here you can see more than 150km over a whole lot of nothing. Even the curvature of the earth can be seen. It’s an iconic place as parts of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert were filmed here.” – Hartmut Toepler Image by Hartmut Toepler...

It’s the outback NSW mining town that may just be Bloke Heaven, but there’s much more to it than big machinery and holes in the ground, writes Elisabeth Knowles. 5 REASONS TO VISIT BROKEN HILL NOW 1. The mining history, past and present. It’s bizarre to see a town built around a 7km-long mullock heap, and fascinating to dig deeper – forgive the pun. 2. The art history. Legendary painter Pro Hart lived here. There are more than 30 galleries in Broken Hill, the biggest of which is the oldest (and most impressive) Regional Gallery in NSW. 3. The film...

Where is it? 9km north of Broken Hill, NSW  Take a picnic and watch the sun set over one of the world’s most spectacular outdoor galleries, the Sculpture Symposium: 12 individual stone works carved by Australian and international artists in 1993. To see the sculptures at their best, get there at either end of the day as a pink and yellow sky swirls around, perfectly complementing the works. Broken Hill itself is rich in history, with spotless parks and gardens, more galleries than pubs and fantastic restaurants.

Kinchega National Park lies about 111km southeast of Broken Hill. Liz Schaffer pays it a visit I catch my first glimpse of the transformed Kinchega National Park from the back seat of a Cessna. To fly over an expansive, tree-lined lake in an environment previously known for its seemingly limitless red horizons is bizarre to say the least. For the first time in ten years the Menindee Lake System, which has a holding capacity 3.5 times that of Sydney Harbour, is completely full. Kinchega’s Menindee and Cawndilla Lakes are part of this valuable system and are responsible for the area’s...

Australian Traveller Magazine's 100 Great Australian Holiday Homes It’s easy to jag a one-off win – look at Manly-Warringah, or Hawthorn – but to win three in a row requires something special. All Cathy and Rick Edmonds ever wanted to do was to supplement their income with a cottage they could be proud of. They took an ignored 19th Century miners’ cottage on Broken Hill’s main street, added a dash of love and care and somewhere along the way not one, not two, but three consecutive NSW tourism awards for deluxe accommodation fell into their laps. After a hard drive...

Craig Roberts unearths an overlooked tourism gem in Broken Hill – a rock collector with a mineral display to rival any in the country. Without being pushed into the role, artist Howard Steer has seemingly taken over as unofficial Godfather of the Broken Hill Arts Community. He has taken it upon himself, not unlike his old friend Pro Hart, to promote everything the region has to offer. This includes non art-related attractions. Sometimes the best things you find are not the ones you were looking for. It’s Howard who put us onto this one. Unlike Howard, Milton Lavers is no...

The Broken Hill Bush Mail Run is a no-frills “tour” that’s as real as they come. Nothing’s staged, nothing’s contrived. It’s just you, the ever-changing scenery, some highly eccentric mailboxes and hundreds of kilometres of honest to goodness outback. Words by David Whitely Sheep logic works entirely differently to ours. The three woolly merinos can hear us approaching along the dirt track. They can sense the dust storm being kicked up behind the Landcruiser. They know this means danger, but as we thunder ever closer they panic and break into a run. And it seems that straight in front of...

Surrounded by desert in a 300km radius, Broken Hill is smack bang in the middle of nowhere – or the middle of everywhere, as locals like to say. The compact town has grown to be a culturally diverse and vibrant hotspot. It’s not only home to dingoes, dust and desert peas but to the oldest mosque in Australia, established in 1880 by camel drivers, with one of our country’s oldest synagogues just across town. Aboriginals and explorers passing through used the area around what is today the capital of the outback as a base, and the town itself wasn’t founded...

A town so emblematic that every time anyone in TV or film wants to portray the outback they head straight to Silverton. Having Mad Max’s Interceptor parked out front of the Silverton Hotel reveals how readily the town wants to cash in on its celluloid ubiquity. Silverton peaked as a town in 1885 when the discovery of silver lit the beacon for speculators and miners to follow; once the bigger deposits around Broken Hill were discovered, the population ebbed thataway. The whole experience of being in Silverton is frankly surreal. Solitary, small historical buildings occasionally pierce the red dusty landscape...

Have a milkshake at the authentic, 1950s-inspired  Bells Milk Bar, Broken Hill In the never-ending search for authenticity, Bells Milk Bar in Broken Hill stands out. If you remember when milkshakes were made with real milk and syrups, a spider was served in a fancy glass and there were stools at the counter, then Bells is for you. Not even close to the “main drag” and originally a confectionary store, Bells was developed by Minnie Pearl Bell, who added the 1950s styling that continues today. “Out of this World” was the marketing slogan for the store, backed up by 1950s...

Jaws drop and people stand speechless in front of the World’s largest acrylic painting, the Big Picture. Do not stop in Broken Hill without checking it out. It’s difficult here to do it justice, especially when you realise it was only one man, one brush stroke at a time, who completed the colossal 12m x 100m canvas. Ando (left), the artist, has never had an art lesson in his life. His style is typically referred to as “Andoism”, as he blends perception, reflection, depth, shadow and light to depict a “super realistic” art form so true to life you’ll be...