Broken Hill

It took us 9hrs of driving, but we did finally make it to Broken Hill.

It was all (semi)familiar ground till we reached Cobar, then things started getting a bit more interesting. The country-side seemed to change completely every 50km or so. From Cobar, it was gently rolling terrain covered in scrubby trees - all with their lowest branches cropped neatly to goat-height (and with plenty of wild-goat sightings, plus the occasional emu). From there it became flatter, with the scrub getting lower, until any rise in the road gave expansive views to the horizon in all directions. It was surprising how colourful the country-side actually was (and very green - there has obviously been a bit of rain out here). Also surprising (although maybe not so much) the number of other vehicles on the road, all of them fully loaded and most with either caravan or camper trailer in tow. We listened in on a few UHF conversations ("watch out mate, there's a bend coming up in the road - haven't seen one of those for a while"). All seems to be working fine.

Spent a brief 30min wandering the main drag in Broken Hill before the cold drove us back inside (does not bode well for camping). There's heaps of interesting history here - will definitely need to come back and spend a proper amount of time here. It's a funny experience driving up the main street - pretty typical streetscape for a country town, then if you look to the south, the buildings end abruptly and all you can see is the huge pile of dirt from all the mine workings (stretching the length of the town). We both also laughed at the street names - Chloride St, Bromide St, Sulphide St.

So the plan from here is to spend one more night warm and indoors, then stock up on meat/fruit/vegetables and to head off for Yunta and the Flinders (yay).