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.

Friday 31 January 2014

Congratulations to Peter Keenan Broken Hill's Citizen of the Year 2014

Congratulations are in order for Peter Keenan who was awarded Broken Hill Citizen of the Year 2014. I've not met Peter, but I heard Julie Clift of ABC Broken Hill's Outback Outlook show interview him on Tuesday 28th January and he is very involved with the Broken Hill community and it's no surprise that he received this year's award.

The Barrier Daily Truth (BDT) also reported on the story in the paper on Tuesday 28 January 2014, see link to the article here. Peter also happens to be the Advertising Manager for the BDT.

The paper also reported that Jarrah Seager and Dylan Stone were honoured with the Young Citizen of the Year award and Seymon Eckert won the Young Citizen Encouragement award.

Mr Keenan, a tireless volunteer, was given the award at the Australia Day Awards ceremony at the Civic Centre on Sunday, Australia Day (26th January).

Peter Keenan, image courtesy Barrier Daily Truth

Broken Hill also welcomed 10 new Australian citizens at the Civic Centre. The BDT reported that the new citizens came from a variety of countries including Colombia, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

By the way, a belated Happy Australia Day 2014 to everyone. I was out of internet range in central Victoria on the 26th so I couldn't publish on the day. I hope you had a great day and appreciated how lucky we are in Australia.

Congratulations Peter on your much deserved win.  Cheers, Jane Deany

Tuesday 28 January 2014

Julie Clift is ABC Broken Hill's Outback Outlook's new host

Julie Clift, ABC Broken Hill's Outback Outlook presenter.
Image by & courtesy of Erica Visser, Barrier Daily Truth
ABC Broken Hill's Outback Outlook is a radio show on ABC Broken Hill, 999 on the AM band, and is hosted by Julie Clift. In fact Monday 21st January 2014 was Julie's first day in the chair as the long-running show's new host. The show helps you -

"find out the full story with local news and current affairs. It looks at the stories making news from the region, and also includes entertainment and music".


You can catch the show weekdays 8.30 am - 11 am. If you miss it, they have Outback Outlook Reloaded available via the internet which where you can download an MP3 audio file and hear recent episodes of the first half hour of the show.

The Barrier Daily Truth's (BDT) Erica Visser recently wrote an article about Julie's love of Broken Hill and how she has ended up in the City in this important ABC radio hosting role. Here's a link to the article which was published in the BDT on 20 January 2014 which was the day Julie took over the reigns from long time breakfast show host Andrew Schmidt who had been filling in since the departure of the show's previous host Chris Jeremy in late 2013. 

I hope you enjoy your new role Julie.

Cheers, Jane Deany

Monday 20 January 2014

Sussan Ley hits the road to visit Broken Hill Tuesday 21 January 2014

Here is a press release about The Hon Sussan Ley MP, Member for Farrer's (the Federal electorate which includes Broken Hill) road trip this week around her electorate. She will travel 1,000 kms by road instead of flying to each location which is her usual means of getting around her huge electorate of almost 250,000kms.

You can also get updates of her movements through her Twitter account @sussanley




'15 January 2014
Media Release
For immediate release

Farrer Flier hits the road

Local MP and pilot, Sussan Ley, has shelved plans for her regular fly-in visit
to remote areas of Farrer, to instead take on a challenging 1000km road trip.

A combination of the summer’s extreme weather conditions and plans for a series of ‘town hall’ style constituent meetings will see Ms Ley hit the road next week (20-24 January 2014).   

“I am keen to discuss all current issues, particularly the impact of the extended
dry on an increasing number of our local producers and graziers”.

“There are a number of important initiatives the new government is rolling out this year which I also want to outline; from communications and health, child and aged care to improving transport links.”

“Additionally, work is now underway to refine the Murray Darling Basin Plan which aims to deliver a fairer balance for all those accessing this great river system”, Ms Ley concluded.

Farrer residents are welcome to drop in to the following venues,
or call 1300 303 203* to arrange a personal appointment time.

(*toll free within the electorate).

Monday 20 Jan   Wentworth       Shire Office                 10.30am  - 12.30pm
Tuesday 21 Jan    Broken Hill      Electorate Office            4.00pm   -  5.30pm
Wednesday 22 Jan  Packsaddle  Roadhouse                    11.00am - 12.00pm
            Tibooburra              Albert Hall                         1.30pm   -  3.30pm
Thursday 23 Jan    White Cliffs own Hall                          12.00pm -  2.00pm
Friday 24 Jan      Menindee           Rural Transaction Ctr     1.00pm -  3.00pm'

Sounds like a great opportunity to hear what's going on first hand, and make up your own mind what to think about it.

I hope people make the most of this opportunity.

Safe travelling Sussan, that's a lot of driving and a busy schedule, cheers, Jane Deany

Sunday 19 January 2014

GAARA Stronger Women, Stronger Nations opens 24 January 2014

Art Scene
Broken Hill's GAARA Arts have a special art exhibition opening this week at the beautiful, historic Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery and it promises to be a wonderful exhibition.


The theme is "Stronger Women, Stronger Nations", and the title is somewhat self explanatory. But in a few words it can be described as an exhibition which recognises the contributions of all women in society throughout history. And what a great topic that is.

The exhibition will coincide with International Women's Day (IWD) on Saturday 8th March 2014. The theme for IWD this year is 'Inspiring Change'.

I am sure it will be a wonderful exhibition and I hope I can pop up (from my hometown Melbourne) to see it.


"Stronger Women,
Stronger Nations"

The opening night is Friday 24 January 2014, at 6pm. The Gaara exhibition will be officially opened by local art supporter Adelaide De Main and will run until Sunday 9th March 2014.

There are two other exhibitions opening on the same night - 

ABC Open Broken Hill's 'Abandoned' exhibition (which runs until 3rd March 2014) is a celebration of photographs taken in the Tibooburra and Milparinka regions through the ABC Open (Broken Hill) Project in 2013. I wrote a couple of articles about the exhibition at the time, see links here to the posts - 

"ABC Open 'Abandoned' photography exhibition Tibooburra 7-27 June" (6 June 2013)

"Snapped out of Broken Hill, ABC Open's free photography workshops to visit Milparinka and Tibooburra this weekend" (18 April 2013)

The third exhibition is 721 Miles West which is a series of works by Archibald finalist Jodi Daley, which explores the visual narrative of contemporary life in the Western Division.
The Tango Dancers by Maureen Clark

Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery -
404-408 Argent Street, Broken Hill

Opening Friday 6pm 24 January 2014

Gallery hours -
Monday - Friday 10am - 5pm
Saturday/Sunday and most public holidays 11am - 4pm

For more details about all three exhibitions, you can visit the Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery's own website www.bhartgallery.com or following this link to their exhibitions page. Alternatively you can telephone the Gallery Manager Cathy Farry on (08) 8080 3440.

Enjoy, cheers, Jane Deany

Saturday 18 January 2014

Searching for Broken Hill (#BrokenHill). Try Google, hashtags # and ....

Searching for Broken Hill? I don't mean the old fashioned way using a map.

Just thought I would give you an idea of what comes up first when you do a "Broken Hill" Google search, and different ways to find out more about Broken Hill.

Search Engines
You may never have tried the following suggestions and they apply to any search, not just about Broken Hill, so it is useful to understand that you will find different results depending how you search, that is, which search engine you use, for example Google, Bing, Yahoo, YouTube etc...



Search "Broken Hill" using the following different suggestions and see what comes up.

Do a Google search when you are logged in (eg to your own Google/Google+, GMail account etc...)

Try the same after you have logged out of your Google account.

Then try Bing (Microsoft's search engine) instead of Google.

I read that YouTube has been quoted in 2013 as the second most used search engine after Google although I don't recall the source, so this is unconfirmed. I have also seen Bing reportedly, on eBizMBAranking as the second highest ranked search engine.

If you weren't aware, YouTube (created in 2005) was bought by Google in 2006.

Incognito Search
You can do an Incognito search by opening a browser as an Incognito window, details of what this is are explained when in such a window, by clicking on the help symbol '?'. Also, here is a definition I found on www.about.com .

Browsers
Then try some of the following browsers as the results will also vary depending upon which one you use, for example, Internet Explorer (Windows/PC users); Safari (for Apple products); Chrome (Google's own browser), Mozilla Firefox or Opera.

It is quite interesting what you may or may not find depending upon the tool you use.

Hashtags #
Also, don't forget # (hashtags). Try searching #BrokenHill (not case sensitive) or # in front of any topic you're interested in, on Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Google+ etc.. and see what you find. If the search item is two words or more such as Broken Hill, don't put spaces between the words or hashtag.

Food for thought and very useful when researching pretty much anything these days.

Cheers, Jane Deany

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Real Estate in the news again in Broken Hill, it's a buyer's market

Real Estate
Barrier Daily Truth (BDT) reported a couple of interesting stories about Broken Hill Real Estate on Monday 6th January this week.


This house (not on market now) was
advertised at $75,000 in September 2013
Listed by Century21 McLeods Broken Hill.
Perfect example of what I'm talking about!
Good News For Home Buyers
The front page article that caught my eye was also a topic I could fully relate to and understand. Broken Hill real estate is very affordable, especially if you come from pretty much any of the Australian capital cities like Melbourne where I come from. All the capital city prices these days just keep getting more expensive as the months and years roll by.

Dr Christine l'Anson was the subject of the article see link here to excerpt of the article "Doctor Recommends Country Life", by BDT journalist Andrew Robertson. She decided to move from Sydney a year ago to take advantage of the favourable real estate market, not to mention great lifestyle in Broken Hill and "... escape the expense and grind of Sydney ..." .

I've mentioned in earlier posts about real estate, that on my first visit to Broken Hill in 2002, I was absolutely amazed at the low prices for quite reasonable houses located in a very liveable (if not slightly remote) city.

In 2002 you could get a reasonable cottage for between $30,000 to $50,000. Something similar in recent peaks around 2006 would have sold for well over $100,000 to around $150,000, not bad in just four years.

"...escape the expense and grind of Sydney..."
(or any Australian capital city)


Prices have come down since then, but you can definitely get quite a reasonable basic home for around $100,000. There are plenty of cheaper homes that need quite a bit of work, but it is a lot better price point than trying to get something in a capital city. Yes, there are quality homes in Broken Hill that are over $300,000 and event higher than that. Definitely some cute properties in the mid $100,000's eg $150,000 range. I was up there in September 2013 so pretty recently.

With a reported yield of close to between 9-10% if you're an investor, that's a pretty good return.

But I'm focusing this time more on owner occupiers.

If you are struggling to make ends meet in the big smoke, I really do recommend you visit Broken Hill to see if it's worth making a lifestyle change. It's really a very liveable city, plenty to do, quite well serviced with planes, trains and buses. You would find a pretty good lifestyle if you didn't mind the lack of big city buzz. Yes it is a bit different in Broken Hill, but in a good way.

Check it out. Cheers, Jane Deany

Wednesday 1 January 2014

Happy New Year Broken Hill and welcome 2014

January sunrise over quintessential Broken Hill

Wishing everyone in Broken Hill, Melbourne, across Australia and around the globe a fantastic New Year.

May 2014 bring you much joy, good health, happiness and prosperity.

Cheers,

Jane Deany