It was a leisurely start to the day after yesterday's long drive (568km) as we had a much shorter (298km) drive to Broken Hill. We estimated it would take around 4 hours as there was really no particular sights to see along the way.

While the country was generally dry the whole way, the landscape was surprisingly varied and the colourful flowers along the roadside added colour . The other things of interest adjacent to the road were birds, goats, sheep and emus. Many of the birds appeared to be feasting on the road kill, mainly kangaroos and sheep. The goats were grazing over what seemed like around 100km and while most were behind fences, some had ventured under the wire fence onto the verge of the road. There were also some sheep grazing and we were taken by the black faced ones! Most of the emus were in the scrub, but there were a couple that were quite close to the road, which is pretty risky given the many large trucks travelling this road..

Although Broken Hill is in NSW, because it is closer to Adelaide, it runs of SA time. So we picked up half an hour on our trip, arriving at the Broken Hill Tourist Park, our 'home' for the next three nights, around 1pm. After setting up the caravan we drove into the city centre to have some lunch, visit the Tourist Information Centre, have a walk around the city centre and stock up on provisions for the next few days .

There are many beautiful buildings, which echo the wealth mining must have brought to the district. We stopped at The Place Hotel, which is famous as a filming location for Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Originally built as a coffee place in 1889, because it was unprofitable it became a hotel in 1892. What we found perhaps more interesting were the murals that were painted on the walls and ceiling of the foyer. Apparently one of the original owners named Mario painted a copy of Botticelli's Venus on the ceiling and he offered a 1000 pound prize to anyone who could match his work on the adjacent panel. This still remains blank, but the walls have all been painted over time by an indigenous artist Gordon Waye, with the only stipulation that each painting had to contain a water feature.
On the way back to the car we passed the municipal offices where there was a set of seven sculptured heads. These are of the so called 'syndicate of seven' who were the original members of the Broken Hill Mining Company which first pegged mining leases in September 1883.
Tomorrow we will see some more of the district's sights, including The Big Picture which is touted as the world's largest acrylic painting on canvas (12m X 100m) and is an outback scene.

Dinner was pan fried salt and pepper squid with an Asian salad, complemented with a white wine.