About

ABOUT
ilovebrokenhill.com , was first published on 8 December 2011 by Jane Deany. My blog is all about the famous outback Australian National Heritage Listed City named Broken Hill, located in the state of New South Wales. I first visited #BrokenHill in 2002 and have returned many times since then. ilovebrokenhill.com will help you discover what's great about this historic mining city, where in the mid 1880's the line of lode, a rich ore body of silver, lead and zinc was found. You will find stories about anything related to Broken Hill.

Tuesday 31 January 2012

Broken Hill 2012 - Great to be back

Hi all, a brief update.  I have just returned from a four day trip to Broken Hill and although it was unusually wet for the area - it rained pretty much steadily from a big storm Friday evening (27th), all Saturday and most of Sunday, I still had a really wonderful time.

I arrived early evening on Australia Day (26th January) and was promptly invited to a BBQ that very night, with a group of poets who were having a long weekend get together at the Tourist Lodge where I was staying that first night.  The host was the very hospitable owner of the Lodge - Dallas.

Interior Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery
(from gallery website)
Art Scene
Socialising continued the following evening at the Broken Regional Art Gallery for the opening of a Bill Henson photographic exhibition.  Also opening that night was a linocut and 'story poles' exhibition by Kevin (Kat) Cattermole - a Paakantji artist from Wilcannia, together with another linocuts exhibition by Robyn Nelson who spent some time in Broken Hill as she grew up.  The event commencing at 6.30pm was initially called off after the Friday night storm caused the power to go out, but fortunately, not long after, the power was restored and the event was able to go ahead.  It was great to meet so many friendly locals.

During the few days I was there, I managed to catch up with a number of local artists including Andrea Blundell, Jenny Cattonar, Ian Lewis, Eric McCormick and Deirdre Edwards.  I had a good chat with Angela Fitzpatrick (over the phone as she wasn't in her studio that day).  I was meant to go out to Silverton to catch up with Albert Woodroffe who owns Horizon Gallery, on the Friday, but unfortunately with the very wet stormy conditions, he advised by phone that if I came out that afternoon, I might get stuck there as the creek was likely to cut the town off, so that was the end of that part of my trip.  I caught up with a few other people which was great, and met a few new people as well.

On Saturday night there was dinner at The Palace Hotel and later dancing to the music of the local band the Silver City Comets.

Silver City Cinema with owner John Wren
courtesy Barrier Daily Truth
Sunday was a Red Cross fundraiser film and afternoon tea event at the local cinema where the premier screening (for the city) of 'The Iron Lady' was on.

It just seemed to be non-stop events, which I'm not complaining about at all.

The Palace Hotel
A few people I was hoping to catch up with had gone away, as summer is a popular time for locals to leave town for a while as it is a very hot time of year and if you're in business, the tourist numbers are usually down around this time.

I stayed at the famous The Palace Hotel for the other three nights I was in town, which was fun.  The hotel is very slowly being 'renovated' after the new owners took over in 2009.  The hotel itself is huge (three storeys), so it will take some time for the project to be completed.

More updates soon.

Cheers, Jane D

Thursday 26 January 2012

Australia Day 2012 ...

Australian Flag


                         Happy Australia Day ....



          Cheers, Jane D

Wednesday 18 January 2012

Let there be art – 2009 and 2012

Art Scene
Along with the significant mining history, Broken Hill has, over time, become a real mecca for artists and there are many galleries in the city.  On my last visit in 2009, I received a list of the Art Galleries and Craft Shops in the city and also at nearby Silverton, from the Broken Hill Visitor Information Centre.  Amazingly there were 30 galleries listed, which, in a city with a population of about 20,000 people, is a very high proportion of galleries per head.  Four of the galleries were in the very small nearby 'ghost' town of Silverton, about 25 Kms out of the city.


Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery
In 2012, that list is no longer available from the Visitor Information Centre, the 2009 version, (now since writing this post, the list has been updated to 2012) is available instead at the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery.  The latest information regarding galleries can now be found on the Visitor Information Centre website.  I was interested to see that there are only 13 galleries listed on their website, so one of my projects on my upcoming visits to Broken Hill in 2012, will be to see what has happened to the galleries that are no longer listed.  Stay tuned for more posts soon. In the meantime, all the galleries are listed at the bottom of this blog/website. There is also a website www.artofbrokenhill.com which has all the galleries listed (see link here) and will be developed to be a more comprehensive directory over time.

As previously noted, I love real estate and Broken Hill has some wonderful properties.  I didn’t mention this earlier, but I love art also, so hunting around all the galleries during my next visit will be lots of fun and a highly recommended activity for anyone visiting the Hill.

Cheers, Jane D

Sunday 8 January 2012

2007 and it's back to Broken Hill again ...

After the brief, second trip back to Broken Hill in 2005-2006, I was keen to go again and this time stay longer. 
The Route
Heading off via the historic gold mining city of Bendigo (Vic) for an art exhibition (barbed wire sculptures by an artist friend of mine’s brother Barry McLoughlan), it was then on to Mildura for a night.  My travel companion and I arrived in Broken Hill on Sunday 24th June 2007.
Winter in the outback can be cold …
It was winter this time and many visitors are a little surprised to find how cold Broken Hill can be at this time of year.  But the sky is still very often a clear beutiful blue.  It’s typical of many inland desert towns and cities.  As well as look around the town in more detail this time, I had another friend to show around who’d never been to Broken Hill.  I enjoy being a ‘tour guide’.  I revisited many of the places I’d been to on the last visit, partly to show my friend around, and partly because I enjoyed going there again myself.

Broken Hill Post Office
corner Argent and Chloride Streets
Unique Street Names
The heart of town is situated on Argent Street, which is just one of the many street names based on the names of various mineral related matter.  Some examples included Oxide, Sulphide, Chloride, Mercury, Cobalt, Blende, Beryl, Garnet, Zebina, Bromide, Mica and Crystal Streets.

The Palace Hotel
corner Argent and Sulphide Streets
Argent Street is a vibrant strip of shops, cafes, accommodation venues, clubs, banks, real estate agents and the post office, just to name a few.  The Broken Regional Art Gallery and the famous Mario’s Palace Hotel (now known as The Palace Hotel (Broken Hill) after new owners took over in 2009) are also situated in this strip.

Silverton Hotel and Mad Max vehicle
Silverton
We also visited Silverton (my second trip there), a town some 25 kilometers north west of Broken Hill.  It has a variety of historic sites and art galleries to visit.  There’s the famous Silverton Hotel, a wonderful cafĂ© with very tasty food with some unique dishes, an old gaol and a school museum. 
I stayed in Broken Hill until the 4th July on this trip, my friend had left on 28th June.  Knowing our separate schedules we’d both taken our own cars.
More stories to follow ...
Cheers, Jane D

Monday 2 January 2012

It's 2012 - Happy New Year from Australia ...


fireworks courtesy
wikimedia.org

Happy New Year to you all, I hope 2012 is a wonderful year for you.  Okay, it's now 8.35am, 2nd January here in Melbourne (so I'm slightly late), 8.05am in Broken Hill, but it is still 1 January in places like New York City - 4.35pm and London 9.35pm.  There was too much happening on the 1st in Melbourne to post!

Once again Happy New Year.

Cheers, Jane D