'Silverton Sunset Kiss'

Melbourne Cup Long Weekend - Day 3

We woke up quite early as we knew if was going to be a scorching hot day today and had another 3 and a half hour drive ahead of us up to Broken Hill and on to ghost town of Silverton. Left the park at around 8:45am and headed north west along the Silver City Hwy to Broken Hill. Let me tell you that there is a heck of a lot of nothing in between Mildura and Broken Hill, but I enjoyed that drive immensely. So different and refreshing to be able to set the cruise control, not have to worry about any other cars on the road and just enjoy the openness and expanse of the landscape.

Along the road we saw many wild goats, birds of prey (picking on roadkill), sheep and the odd pack of emu's.

We arrived at Broken hill at around 11:30am and went straight to a cafe for some brunch as the kids were starving (even though they had finished their breakfast and just sat in the car for a few hours).

Headed up to the 'Line Of Lote' a memorial built to remember all of the miners that have been killed while working at the Iron Ore mines in that area. The temperature had now risen to about 38 degrees C and we were all feeling the heat so didn't stay there that long. We picked up some groceries in town and headed out to Silverton, a ghost town, where only a dozen or two people live now. Mainly artists, shop keepers and a guy that arranges outback camel tours.

We set up the tent in Penrose Park and headed in to the town for a walk around after dinner. The quality of light was amazing as it was a clear blue sky set against the red dirt roads.

We then jumped into the car and headed about 5km up the road to the Mundi Mundi lookout to watch the sunset with around a dozen of so other people. It was quite a surreal feeling on a balmy night.