My New South Wales (NSW) road trip finally lead me to Broken Hill (BH/the Hill) – yeah! It was Friday 8 November 2002 (Cup week back home in Melbourne and “Media Puzzle" (watch youtube video of the race here), ridden by Damien Oliver, had won the Melbourne Cup earlier in the week, just by the way, I love the name of that horse). On the subject of races, Broken Hill has a famous St Patrick's Day race meeting every year, around the 17th of March. I believe it's the highlight of the city's social calendar (or certainly one of them).
Wilcannia
I had left the very small yet historic (wonderful old buildings) town of Wilcannia (NSW) (population in 2006 – 628, with 453 being indigenous people) earlier that day to get there. Wilcannia is the second closest town to Broken Hill and is situated 190 kms due east.
Menindee
The nearest town, some 110 ks south east is Menindee (population according to Wikipedia - @ 15 Aug 2011 “sign-posted population of 980”). Okay, that’s the geography lesson for now ;-) ).
Broken Hill
So I’d finally made it to this famous Australian outback city (population approx 20,000). On my one free day to look around, I couldn’t help but notice how cheap the real estate was compared to Melbourne. The cute miner’s cottages were priced around $30,000 to $50,000 AUD for something quite reasonable – don’t forget this is 2002. You would probably pay ten times that for something similar back in Melbourne. I was somehow besotted with this unique place (I must add that I have always been a sucker for real estate!). I unfortunately couldn’t stick around on that trip but I knew I’d be back.
I had left the very small yet historic (wonderful old buildings) town of Wilcannia (NSW) (population in 2006 – 628, with 453 being indigenous people) earlier that day to get there. Wilcannia is the second closest town to Broken Hill and is situated 190 kms due east.
Menindee
The nearest town, some 110 ks south east is Menindee (population according to Wikipedia - @ 15 Aug 2011 “sign-posted population of 980”). Okay, that’s the geography lesson for now ;-) ).
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| Mine Head Frame at sunrise |
So I’d finally made it to this famous Australian outback city (population approx 20,000). On my one free day to look around, I couldn’t help but notice how cheap the real estate was compared to Melbourne. The cute miner’s cottages were priced around $30,000 to $50,000 AUD for something quite reasonable – don’t forget this is 2002. You would probably pay ten times that for something similar back in Melbourne. I was somehow besotted with this unique place (I must add that I have always been a sucker for real estate!). I unfortunately couldn’t stick around on that trip but I knew I’d be back.
It took a while to get back there, as my next trip wasn’t until New Year’s Eve 2005-2006 (see separate post), and it was just for a long weekend – where I spent much of the time checking out the art scene which is really major. But I’ve been back since then countless times. For some reason this city has caught my attention and I want to share all that’s great about Broken Hill with anyone who’d like to visit my site to hear my perspective and I hope other readers views along the way as well. I would love to hear your impressions if you’ve been there and I will try to help answer your questions about this wonderful city if you haven’t.
Cheers, Jane D
Cheers, Jane D
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