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.

Wednesday 28 January 2015

'Living with inequality' a short film by #BrokenHill filmmakers Sara & Mackenna Ridley

Film
After a quick look on Twitter using the #BrokenHill hashtag I came across this powerful short film which was made using an iPhone by Broken Hill filmmakers Sara and Mackenna Ridley.

Called 'Living with inequality', the title says it all.

Here's the link to the Vimeo clip (http://vimeo.com/117871753) -

Equality Film from Sara Ridley on Vimeo.

The message is that discrimination continues to exist in Australia today.

Thanks Jenia Ratcliffe of @ABCOpen in Broken Hill for the Tweet. 
Very thought provoking.

Jane Deany


Tuesday 20 January 2015

Broken Hill is Australia's first National Heritage Listed City - Congratulations #BrokenHill

Broken Hill landscape with mine head frame
Broken Hill has become Australia's first National Heritage Listed city. The official announcement came earlier this morning at a special event out the front of the Town Hall Facade space in Argent Street. (To which I was invited … but I think the whole city was in the end, as there was an open invitation in the local Barrier Daily Truth I noticed!)
The Federal Minister for the Environment the Hon Greg Hunt MP made the announcement a short time ago and was joined by local Mayor Wincen Cuy, the Federal Member for Farrer (Broken Hill's federal electorate) the Hon Sussan Ley MP, as well as Professor Simon Molesworth* (the main proponent for the Heritage City listing, see further details below*) (all pictured in the included tweet).

Congratulations Broken Hill, it's really incredibly exciting news. It's a great honour for such an historically important city, and certainly deserving.

The process took about ten years to come to fruition, so it's been a long time in the making, but well worth the wait (now it's finally over).

In an email I received from the Broken Hill City Council a short time ago they noted the following -

"Broken Hill’s outstanding significance to the nation for its role in creating enormous wealth, its enduring and continuing mining, importance to industrial relations and unionism, community resilience and ingenuity as well as our mining and outback landscape have been recognised with this prestigious citation today.

This recognition positions Broken Hill as the only entire Australian City to be awarded National Heritage Listing and recognises us as the most significant heritage tourism city within Australia. This prestigious citation will raise the international profile of Broken Hill, upgrade our visitor economy and provide our resilient community with momentum to endure in our efforts towards economic diversification."

*The history of the bid is outlined in the following 9 October 2014 story from Broken Hill's 'For Real' online publication, which explains how the push by Monash University Professor Simon Molesworth who's one of Australia's leading environmental lawyers, developed -

http://forreal.brokenhillaustralia.com.au/australia-first-heritage-city/

Melbourne ABC radio host Red Symons talked today to local Broken Hill National Trust of Australia 40 year member and representative Fran McKinnon about the impending news in his early morning radio show - here's the tweet with a podcast recording link included.

Me and the iconic Broken Hill
sculpture - my second trip
The city is abuzz and the tweets are coming in. Check my @ilovebrokenhill feed for more updates. For extra (targeted) information put in the #BrokenHill.

Here are links to other related stories -

ABC Broken Hill's Gavin Coote on 20 January 2015 'Broken Hill to join National Heritage Listing' and 'Broken Hill poised to become first entire Australian city to join National Heritage List'; ABC Broken Hill today also published a story by Alexandra Back, Gavin Coote and Julie Clift - 'Explainer: Broken Hill National Heritage listing'.

Barrier Daily Truth's - Erica Visser on 19 January 2015 - 'Long-awaited announcement expected'.

Once again, let's all rejoice!

Congratulations Broken Hill also known as the Silver City, no wonder I love you!

Cheers, Jane Deany
Melbourne based Broken Hill 'lover', blogging about Broken Hill since 2011.

Sunday 18 January 2015

Lonely Planet lists Broken Hill's Outback Astronomy in world's hottest new travel experiences for 2015

Congratulations
Congratulations to Broken Hill's Outback Astronomy tourism business which this week was included in Lonely Planet's 'world's hottest new travel experiences for 2015' list.

Twenty six attractions were listed and Outback Astronomy came in at number sixteen.

Well done to Outback Astronomy's founders Linda and Travis Nadge.

I was Outback Astronomy's guest on my recent visit to #BrokenHill last month and enjoyed a fantastic night of moon and star gazing. I happened to be there the same night that the Lonely Planet representative attended to do her research which was great. It provided a wonderful opportunity to talk about one of my favourite subjects - Broken Hill - and provide some must see tips.

I can highly recommend the experience.

Here's an article written by Linda Nadge on this blog on 28 May 2014 (www.ilovebrokenhill.com 's first guest post) - 'Outback Astronomy - starry skies shine in Broken Hill'.

Once again congratulations to Linda and Travis Nadge and their Outback Astronomy.

Cheers, Jane Deany
(meant to be having a blogging break, but this was worth a quick blog post!)

Thursday 8 January 2015

I love Broken Hill relationship changes ... what?

Picture of me at my desk on the 2nd anniversary
of www.ilovebrokenhill.com (with one of my artworks).
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Google may wonder what I'm meaning, but yes I think that my 'relationship' with Broken Hill has been changing a little bit lately. Well really, more my relationship with www.ilovebrokenhill.com which is now in it's fourth year.

Many relationships improve when a break is taken, and I think it's time for me to take a break from www.ilovebrokenhill.com , although this decision certainly comes with some misgivings.

It's really more the fact that I want to spend time on other projects and other passions, so although there is still so much to write about, and story ideas in the pipeline etc..., I think the time is right for a little break.

When I mentioned a break about seven months ago on the 2.5 year anniversary of the blog, people encouraged me to continue, and I did. This post will be the 270th post, which is quite a lot of posts, an average of almost 90 per year.

I may still post something from time to time. I'm not sure yet. I almost certainly will, in a little while, but I'm not promising to.

I hope the listing of Broken Hill as Australia's first Heritage Listed City does happen very soon. It would be wonderful news. I read with concern that although the listing was meant to occur before Christmas 2014, it hadn't happened. Here's the link to the article from the local 'Barrier Daily Truth' of 2 January 2015 'Anxious silence over listing' by Emily Roberts.

Once again, I wish everyone a fantastic 2015.

Cheers, Jane Deany

Thursday 1 January 2015

Happy 2015 Broken Hill - hope it's a prosperous and happy year for you!

Happy 2015 Broken Hill - hope it's a prosperous and happy year for you!


Cheers, Jane Deany