A good break

We got to Broken Hill and broke our trip there.  The sun rose!
We started by going to the Visitors Centre (VC) where Frances got some service after I had walked out after the female on duty had ignored me (and I hadn't even commented on her being overweight and old).  We decided to do the core of the historic walk.

This is right opposite the VC.  The shafthead is a reproduction - even BH doesn't have mines in the main street
Another view of the same area.  I think the white stuff is a representation of a mineral crystal while the black art is a tribute to Pro Harts ant images.
More mining stuff.
These heads are of the Syndicate of Seven - I didn't get them all in - who originally got the mineral lease for the lode that founded the City (and much of Australia's wealth).
A mural with a few images of notable Australians linked to the Hill.
Some public art: the accompanying text was pretty toxic!
An old pub, converted to a community health centre.
The town hall.
A garden bed wreath of poppies ...
.. actually made by knitting with buttons as the gynaecuium.
It being just after ANZAC Day there were wreaths onb the War Memorial.  I liked this one from the Aboriginal community inthe colours of their flag.
Here is the Miners Memorial from the town: I find it most appropriate the way it looms over the CBD.
Frances found a good birding site outside the S BH sewage ponds when she chatted at the Visitors Centre.  A small dog found the only muddy puddle for 200km in any direction!
Saltbush flowers.
Ruby saltbush flowers close up ...
.. and not so close.
Here is Old Man Saltbush.  Do you get the feeling that saltbush is the dominant veghetation around here?
Here is the puddle.  I reckon the local trail bike and 4x4 hoons have contributed to to this.
The city from the Miners Memorial.
A couple of views of the memorial.

There were some flowering Eucalypts in the area.
I think this is a Wallaroo (Macropus robustus) joey.  I also think it defines cute!
A Mistletoe growing in an acacia.  I need to do some work to give the Latin: I will say Lysiana sp as a first guess.
A goat on a rock!
Some of the sandstone sculptures.  They are beginning to weather which IMHO adds to the interest of looking at them.
The nest of a processionary caterpillar (thanks Roger Farrow for the ID). The body of the nest looked like dirt, but is apparently faecal matter(ie poop).
back to Index post

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A tour of the West (part 1)

Image
A friend from my time in the UN sent me some photos of her family trip along Route 66.  They did this is a large camperwagon rather than a Chevy Corvette (apparently the kids jacked up about being offered a trip in the trunk).  It seems to have been a very good trip for them and most interesting to see their photos.  It was also educational for me, as I found out the German for rocking chair (schaukelstuhl, since you ask). They did 7200 miles in 30 days - a pretty serious bit of distance. This made me think of the trips we did in 1981 when living in Denver.  Frances initiated that idea by getting a book about the National Parks of the West  and marking interesting places.  I then worked out a route on a Rand-McNally Road Atlas (GPS was unknown then  - as were iPhones, personal computers and the internet).  From memory, taking nearly the whole Summer school holidays we covered about 10,000 miles in 70 days.  Here, approximately,  are our routes: That map comes from Google Maps (G
Read more

Insects from pine trees

Image
This afternoon (13/1/2015) we were looking out of our sunroom and noticed a strange bit of mist.  On getting my binoculars on the case I found it to be a cloud of tens of thousand of insects.  They appeared with naked eye to be flying away, but with binoculars I thought they were circling. Here are some images In the second one it may be possible to see there are two streams coming from the top of each tree. There was a loud buzzing noise but that could just be several thousand wings. Earlier in the day Frances had been to some nearby willows and they were infested with many little black soft bodied insects.  Perhaps they shifted to the pines and were swarming? Help!! Any information welcome. A colleague, from Wamboin, had noticed a similat phenomenon, but involvng eucalypts rather than pines!  Here are the photos he took with his phone. I have consulted some expert friends.   Their responses were: I would have gone for chironomids. I recall years ago driving al
Read more

Maslins beach rules

Image
Anyone who was in Adelaide in the 1970s will be having a good nudge nudge at that title.  However the beach is really nice even though it is the haunt (in Summer ) of naked people.  (As an aside one of the 'van park staff was talking to some other guests and commented that the sights on the beach in Summer were not at all exciting.)  In April it is the haunt of seniors, many of them exercising their dogs, and thus a far more attractive place. Getting to the beach was a walk of about 1km along roads, from our van.  The second half of this went past a rather daggy looking paddock with many formed ridges in it, as though it was irrigated, although a water sources wasn't evident.  The paddock got interesting towards the end as some green parrots appeared.  Thanks to Frances eye for detail we have subsequently identified these as Elegant Parrots: my first lifer for 2014.    The locale is indicated by the red lines in this mudmap: Here are the birds: The view from the top of
Read more