Wide open spaces

Silverton greeted us with bracing winds and rain on our first night there, forcing Stu to peg the annex down with guy ropes to stop it blowing away. The morning brought better weather with sunny skies although it was still pretty cold. As we surveyed our campsite we decided it was quite a bizarre place that we were staying in. It was called Penrose Park, and was apparently quite the popular spot in the 1940’s and 50’s for the people of Broken Hill, who would come there for picnics after the mining companies poured money into it so their employees had somewhere nice to go and relax. Unfortunately the money and popularity dried up a few decades later, and since then it has been pretty unloved. It kind of felt like something from post apocalyptic times where time and nature were slowly taking over, with the exception of the new undercover play equipment, which felt really out of place there.

We headed into Silverton that morning and really enjoyed walking around the old buildings, which were just brimming with history and colonial character. We took in a couple of art galleries with an eclectic and humorous collection of works, before heading to the Silverton Gaol. The building that once would have housed criminals of the mining boom, now houses an incredible array of artefacts and memorabilia from the region’s history, including things ranging from domestic appliances to mining equipment to a coroner’s bath for preserving bodies until the Sydney coroner could get there. We spent hours walking through the rooms, but the kids really enjoyed being locked up in the original cells (and for a second we were considering leaving them there, at least for a little while!). We then wandered around to the famous Silverton Hotel for a cleansing ale and some hot chips. Em, donned in her newly purchased pink tutu, couldn’t resist the opportunity to get up on the stage and get her grove on to the 80’s classics blaring from the speakers, much to the delight and applause from the other travellers who were there at the time.

In the afternoon we drove into Broken Hill and headed up to the miners memorial which offers panoramic views of the town, as well as an impressive collection of derelict mining equipment for the kids to explore. There were also rocks strewn everywhere, which our two budding geologists sorted through and smashed for a surprising amount of time. After a few games of hide and seek amongst the equipment, we headed back to camp via the Silverton cemetery, which was full of graves dating back to the late 1800’s. That evening we enjoyed a drink with a couple we met there at camp, while our kids all played together in the playground, and after dinner all the kids came over to our fire to toast marshmallows before bed.