Day 15 - Chilly again!

The cold front that has played havoc with our fuel economy last night played a little havoc with our extremities! The weather forecast said "11 degrees, feels like 9" and it was a tad fresh. At Yunta, we had pointed the car towards the wind in the probably vain hope that it would make the van less of a target. Another old guy in a van pulled up behind us using us as a windshield! In the end the breeze died down and a cold, still night ensued.

(Today in the van, opening it up at Broken Hill I can still smell GG's chilli concoction mixed with my Rogan Josh! Oh well!) We were warm on the inside! A train went past about 30m from us about 6pm and again at about 6.30 am, fortunately I didn't hear any in between over the noise of the road trains! In reality there were a few prior to about 8pm but I didn't hear much after that though GG tells me that a compressor at the local pub across the road kept him awake in the early hours.
 
Another uneventful drive this morning after a pre 9am start and we arrived in Broken Hill about half eleven. We were, unfortunately, accompanied by Freddie the glove puppet and his mate Frida doing their impersonations of native birds...at least until GG's hands warmed up! Nothing if not entertaining is travel with the G man!

Along the way we were wondering whether our e-mailed birthday wishes to my "penpal" John in the US, had arrived, so, with the rare benefit of having a phone signal, I Skyped him! Receiving a phone call from a couple of blokes cruising through the Aussie outback at about 8pm local time didn't faze him a bit and we had a nice chat!
 
We booked in at the local vanpark and headed off to the "Broken Earth" café situated on top of the massive spoil heap overlooking the city - to find it closed down. GG was disappointed but I managed to console him with free donuts at a café in town!

I noticed a few vacant shops and I guess it's a combination of the transition of Broken Hill's economy from mining to tourism as well as the somewhat dressed business environment.

We travelled out to Silverton, a site GG had visited on prior trip, to see some of the historic buildings and galleries there. It's an interesting place, the town hall was built and the Council first sat in 1886 and was dissolved in 1895!
 
The silver mine must have become uneconomical when the main BH mines opened up. Several masonry buildings remain from the brief glory era and there are at least three art galleries of one sort or another. Many of the previous buildings were pulled into Broken Hill by teams of bullocks, camels and donkeys on "jinkers", which explains some of the open space I guess.  

We visited one that has a café and features artworks, leatherwork and glass art, it is named "39 Dips" after the number of floodways leading out to Silverton from the Hill (for those of you who know me yes, I checked and I counted 32!). I was very taken with some of the art by Howard William Steer, and bought a small one.

I wandered around taking some photos as GG braved a pretty lazy breeze, I'll upload a few.

As the weather was a tad cloudy we adjourned back to the van via the shops (where I purchased a photoelectric smoke detector in an effort to prevent GG scaring our camping neighbours by yelling at the old one which went off every time he cooked toast)! He even scared me!

A warming coffee and I have settled down to write this and download some photos from my cameras.
  
Here's a couple more photos...