Broken Hill, NSW to Echuca, Vic

The week started in Broken Hill where we visited a couple of museums and Art Galleries after taking a drive out west to Silverton and east to Menindee Lakes. 

Silverton is about 26kms west and was developed as a mining area well before Broken Hill was discovered and developed.  More recently it has been the site of movies including the Mad Max series and several more.  Nowadays it is full of Art Studios and the Hotel is a big popular place full of memorabilia from the movies and actors who visited.  There is some very fine Australian Art for sale but out of our budget and storage capacity.  The 2 door Falcon used in Mad Max and its ‘offspring’ the supercharged VW beetle from a later movie are on display as are a few other vehicles used including one that splits in two down the centre and both parts continue to drive on 3 wheels each.  We enjoyed a good lunch in an old stone cottage that was very popular and good.  Back in town we went through the Geology Museum which housed all the best examples of minerals and crystals from the area.  It was impressive including a 25kg block of almost pure silver found in the mine that looked big but was nowhere near the biggest which weighed in at almost a tonne and had to be cut up to be extracted from the mine.  A display visiting from the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney called ‘Frock Stars’ was also interesting and featured Australian Fashion labels that have made it on the international catwalks.  Carol was impressed but couldn’t find anything she would wear.

The Menindee Lakes system is so impressive being a huge water storage and control system on the Darling River in barren sandy country.  The lakes are much larger than I expected and Coppi Hollow is a very pleasant place on the edge of one of the lakes with a small van park and lovely grassed waterside park with plenty of shade trees developed by a water ski club.  It was a nice place to have lunch after the rocky hills around Broken Hill.  Menindee township was left for another day but a few km’s back out of town, the village of Sunset Strip looked a very pleasant little lakeside community.  It has a single strip of houses built along the water front facing east with only half of the strip having a second row of houses back off the water.  The Sunset Strip Golf Club looked a unique course as the fairways were completely bare red sand as if all the saltbush scrub and trees had been poisoned and cleared.  I am guessing with club selection was easy; driver, sand wedge, sand wedge, sand wedge, putter on every hole. 

The main museum in town is based around the old Silver City Tramways Station.  The tram that linked Silverton to Broken Hill was the only privately owned railway in Australia for decades.  It bought workers and their families in to the new town of Broken Hill.  There is heaps of old Railway and Hospital gear on display for the train buffs along with a rail motor and several steam loco’s used around the town and the mines.  Just around the corner is the Silver Mint and Art Gallery.  It houses a very good mineral display, some more excellent art works, and a chocolate shop.  Most of the mineral specimens here were for sale as was a lot of silver jewellery.  There are many well preserved older buildings in Broken Hill mostly built in the town’s hey day many decade ago.

Landscape on a ute - Silverton

Even the dunny door is a blank canvas

one of the Mad Max cars - a 1975 Falcon

Ore sample in BH Geology Museum

Carol in Frock Stars display

lunching beside the Menindee Lakes at Coppi Hollow

an early Broken Hill Ambulance

Rail Museum locos

Trades Hall, one of BH's well preserved buildings

Mildura was our next destination and we enjoyed the drive down which included smoko at a roadside rest stop overlooking another (?) huge lake in the middle of dry country.  The rest stop was great and would have done for a stopover with beautiful ringneck parrots walking around the huge gum trees in numbers.  Wentworth is a small town along the way and is the town in which the Darling and Murray Rivers join.  The junction is a popular tourist stop and a tower to look at he junction of the rivers was handy.  The Darling has water flowing from western Queensland and flows through mostly clay country so the water is light brown.  The Murray flows through a lot of sand and is greeny clear.  Where they meet the waters stay separated until the next weir and lock downstream.  The rivers look healthy with plenty of pelicans and ducks on the water.

What a contrast Mildura is to Broken Hill.  It too has some well preserved older buildings but being on the Murray with plenty of water available the streets are beautifully grassed with flower gardens and avenues of huge trees in the main streets.  It is a big city and has plenty of fruit, vegetables, wine and olive oil for sale from roadside stalls.  The citrus industry is on its knees with four drought years being followed by poor prices being offered by the large supermarkets.  Large amounts of this years crop is being left to drop on the ground and rot.  The supermarkets will only buy from the Sydney fruit markets and are offering prices less than it costs to pick and freight the fruit to Sydney, let alone pay for the growing costs.  It seems there is something not right about a supermarket having an orange from California sitting beside an orange grown less than 10kms away in Australia and they are both being sold for the same price, about $1/kg. We bought some Aussie oranges and a nice pumpkin for $2.50 which Carol turned into beautiful soup.  Mildura has a big indoor heated pool but at $5.75 per adult per swim we dodged that exercise.  Mildura is the first town we have come across with paddle-steamers doing river tours and there are heaps of them and heaps of houseboats for rent.  The river is very wide here and the van park we chose was just out of town and on the riverbank.  It was good to enjoy a wine on the grassy bank watching the sun set while someone else was catching plenty of fish (carp).  Jakab was Hungarian and caught at least a dozen carp the first night we were there (I wasn’t fishing) and 3 were over 500mm long.  The next day I was fishing and we caught 2 carp between us the largest being 150mm long.  It’s me.  We have read about the number of nice golf courses along the Murray and I decided to try one.  The Colleamble Golf Club is in a small town outside of Mildura called Dareton on the banks of the river and was a very good course.  There is no lack of water and the short smooth grass was excellent.  Large trees, bunkers, and the river made for good viewing and finishing par, birdie was also fun.  Tourists on houseboats moor on the clubs pontoon and walk 20m to the clubhouse for a game.  There are 15 courses within walking distance of the river.  Sounds like a great holiday to me.

Heading down the Murray we chose to free camp Thursday night in a red gum forest on the banks of the Murray just west of Swan Hill.  The camp site was ok (we were the only ones there), and cooking outside on a fire on a cool night was excellent.  However, no fish and only 1 yabbie did nothing to improve my confidence in being able to live off the waters.

The junction of the Darling (left) and the Murray (right) Rivers

note the clayey brown colour of the Darling (near) and the clear water of the Murray (far)

Weir with lock for boats on the left and water flow gates across the river

Mildura Wharf watching a paddle steamer berth

off on its next tour - not van park opposite left, houseboats lined up opposite right

Timber Jinker with red gum log at White Cliffs outside Mildura

Jakab and his carp - an expensive fish in Hungary but a pest here..

Wine with your sunset??

Friday we wandered into Echuca through Swan Hill, several smaller towns, and passed several large lakes.  The scenery has changed completely into irrigated fruit, veges, grapes, and dairy cows in lush green pastures.  All of the towns are very pretty and well kept.  Euchuca is built around tourism has plenty of book shops, restaurants, motels, and chocolate shops.  It also has a quirky old cinema with original penny machines in an arcade.  The wood-turners creating art out of local red gum are making some nice stuff and a stroll around the wharf area is interesting with all the river port activities on show.  There are heaps of houseboats for hire and some of them are huge and flash.