Tuesday, 24 May 2016

Broken Hill to Barossa Valley

We have enjoyed five days in Broken Hill and have been spoilt by my sister Marian and her partner Robert cooking us lovely dinners every night. We especially enjoyed spending time with two of our nephews, their partners and two great nieces. Broken Hill is an easy place to visit - there's lots to see, plenty of parking, good facilities, and at this time of the year there is good weather for travelers. Thanks to Robert for modifying a couple of lengths of pipe to make it easier for us to pull on the handbrake on the van.

I went to the Line of Lode Miners Memorial which is high above the town on the mullock heap. The names of each of the more than 800 miners who lost their lives working in the mines are etched on individual glass plaques. Our caravan park is next to the Broken Hill cemetery so I have spent time wandering among the graves and have seen the headstones for some of these men. Life in the 1800s and early 1900s was very hard in this part of the world and many people lost their lives to accidents and epidemics.

There is a striking monument in the cemetery over the grave of Percy John Brookfield who was a militant trade unionist subsequently elected to the NSW Legislative Assembly. He was shot in 1921 while trying to disarm a deranged Russian immigrant who had already shot two other people. Brookfield died from his wounds so he was the first sitting member of parliament to have been murdered in Australia, the second being John Newman who was killed in 1994.

Our final outing was a drive to the sculpture garden a few kilometres out of town to view the sandstone structures and the landscape at sunset.

Tomorrow we are driving to the Barossa Valley where we have booked for three nights before moving onto Maclaren Vale for another three nights. We are then planning to go to Lake Eyre but that will depend on the rain which has been forecast for the next few days in South Australia.

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