The beauty and colour of Broken Hill

Browne's Shaft Headframe at Junction Mine

I have just spent five days wandering around the heart of Broken Hill. The city is buzzing with energy and it's great to be back. My last visit was July 2017.

Renewable energy projects are on the go in a number of locations.

A water pipeline from Wentworth to Broken Hill commenced construction earlier in 2018, and when finished at the end of the year, will create water security for the city.

Many houses have new roofs courtesy of a hailstorm back in November 2016, so although a shock at the time, a lot of good has come out of that natural weather event.

There are lots of jobs too for the roofing crews. The pipeline project is said to create 150 local jobs, with a peak construction workforce of around 500 jobs. Mining related jobs are also cropping up, as there is still quite a bit of mine activity. Maybe more on that another time.

I came up from my hometown Melbourne to catch the tail end of the inaugural Heritage Festival which ran for two weeks.

It was fantastic to hear the fascinating talk given by Professor Simon Molesworth AO, QC on the final evening of the event last Friday. The setting for the talk was the historic Broken Hill Regional Art Gallery situated in Argent Street, Broken Hill's iconic main street. Prof. Molesworth was one of the key drivers in helping #BrokenHill to become the first National Heritage Listed City in January 2015.

I then took the opportunity to attend the biannual two day Agfair at the Broken Hill racecourse. With exhibitor numbers up on 2016, and coming from far afield and locally, my first Agfair was a lot of fun. There was a sold out fundraiser ball on the final night. The charity being the Royal Flying Doctor Service. I missed out on that one with all 500 tickets sold. Next time perhaps.

There seems to almost always be an event on in Broken Hill. That's one of the many reasons "I love Broken Hill."

There is so much happening in the city it is hard to know what to write about. So I will save it for another time.

I will just finish by saying that the weather has been glorious every day - low twenties. Sunny mostly, still, and beautiful clear starry nights.

This afternoon was yet again a fabulous opportunity to take some more photos. See my photo of Browne's Shaft Headframe at Junction Mine.

Cheers, Jane Deany

Broken Hill's Heritage City Listing is described on For Real Facebook Page

Much publicity surrounded Broken Hill's Heritage City Listing on 20 January 2015.

I found this great short video below on Broken Hill For Real's Facebook Page. It is certainly worth watching to hear the story of the ten plus year campaign to #BrokenHill's listing.

The video shows key players in the push for the listing, including Professor Simon Molesworth (Chairman, International National Trusts Organisation, heritage commissioner for five years and the main proponent for the Heritage City listing), conservation architect and heritage consultant Elizabeth Vines OAM and Mayor Wincen Cuy (who now wants World Heritage Listing).

Post by Broken Hill For Real.

Cheers,

Jane Deany

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!)

#BrokenHill is Australia's First Nationally Heritage Listed City #heritagecity #thanksbrokenhill pic.twitter.com/YsXX3IzLms
— Broken Hill Council (@BrokenHillCity) January 20, 2015

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.

Which is the first Australian town to be heritage listed in its entirety? #Red chats to a member of #BrokenHill: https://t.co/8n1nPrzzbY
— ABC Radio Melbourne (@774melbourne) January 19, 2015

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.