FORTYSEVENTH DAY – TUESDAY 24TH AUGUST
It was a cold and frosty morning with no clouds. We had breaky, packed up and off to Broken Hill. There were undulating green hills with sheep and pockets of scrub. As the morning went on a light layer of cloud covered the sky. It was pretty windy which made the driving a bit slow. There were many nice old farm houses scattered amongst the hills – this area reminds us a lot of Casterton. We stopped at the SA/NSW boarder at a place called Cockburn. There was a roadhouse and as you walk in you can’t help but notice all the walls are covered in peoples signatures. We grabbed a couple of toasted sandwiches and had a chat to the sheila who worked there – and yes she really was a ‘sheila’. We continued on through hilly country covered in very short ground covers – some succulents and others grasses and bushes. The colours were lovely with different coloured greens and a scattering of pink, purple, orange and yellow flowers. We reached Broken Hill and went straight to the info centre to get a map. We then went and checked out a couple of caravan parks – none of which really enticed us. We looked at the info we collected and decided to go out of town up north to a historic town called Silverton. It was only 25kms and they have a campground there and it sounded like a really interesting place to visit. So off we went. After bumping along through 39 Dips (no crackers!) we reached Silverton. Silverton is a very old town of scattered old buildings and ruins. Some of the buildings are being used for art galleries, a pub, info centre, a cafe and a couple of residences. Many of the buildings are just for looking at. The town has been used for filming many movies including Mad Max 2, A Town Like Alice and Razorback to name a few and countless TV commercials. We drove to Mundi Mundi Lookout and Umberumberka Reservoir. While we were looking out from the lookout we noticed lots of vehicles down on the plains. We looked through the binoculars and noticed some Mad Max type vehicles. They were hooning up and down a dirt road out in the middle of nowhere. When we went back into Silverton we asked and they said it is a bit secretive but they think it is preliminary filming for Mad Max 4. We looked around the town some more and then went and settled into the campsite which is pretty nice. They have some animals and birds in cages and there was a very funny corella called Jack which talked and danced. We were going to have lamb chops for tea but we realized they had actually frozen so we decided to have soup and crumpets instead.