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A few days in Newcastle with a sneaky stopover in Brisbane... Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), Brisbane
 Mount Isa to Newcastle with a stopover in Brisbane
Merewether Baths to Anzac Memorial Walk
After a week of hard toil in the red dirt at the Broken Hill Outback Resort we decided to turn around. Today we crossed the border back into South Australia, as we make a direct beeline for the beach! The journey to Peterborough of about 300 kilometres, with a few stops along the way, took about 4.5 hours.
This quirky, yet insightful tourist attraction was most certainly the highlight of our Broken Hill stint. Despite being afraid of the dark and of confined spaces I had a 'blast' exploring the underground sections of this old silver mine and was enthralled listening to stories about boys as young as eight working the mine, that was predominately toiled by Cornish and Walsh miners.
In the 1850's the semi-arid landscape of the Appollyon Valley and of what was to become the townships of Silverton and Broken Hill had prospectors searching for gold. Yet attempts proved unsuccessful and it wasn't until the 1880's when Cornish and Walsh miners from the nearby copper mines of Burra descended upon the land, this time in search of silver. It is said the Daydream Mine, named so as prospector, Joe Meech in 1881 awoke from a day slumber to find himself upon a silvery outcrop, declaring the lease his. However, due to a dispute with the lease it was not until 1884 that the silvery outcrop began to be mined. During the 1880's the region was awash with prospectors in search of the now lucrative silver. Broken Hill was officially discovered by Charles Rasp in 1883, and the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited (BHP) incorporated in 1885. The Daydream Mine remains in much of the original condition, showcasing the strength of the Mulga tree that continues to prop up the tunnels and the endurance of the short in stature, but tall in courage miners that worked 12 hours per day, 6 days per week in candle light to extract the ore. The mine ceased operations in the early 1900's and was reopened by an old BHP miner in the 1960's who toiled away at the lode, until his death in the 1980's. After his death the family opened the mine to the public as a tourist venture. We pre-booked a week at the Broken Hill Outback Resort, which is located about 15 kilometres east of Broken Hill. The reviews of the only other two caravan parks in town spoke less than highly of the them; one with 'perms' the other with 'thieves' leaving us with the 'Resort' as our only option. What we didn't realise until upon our arrival was that the place was still a construction site. Not exactly what we had envisaged when booking a 'Resort' for the higher than average rate of $40 per night...  A couple of days after we checked in the owner knocked on our door asking if we'd like to help out with odd jobs around the 'Resort' for the amazingly generous wage of $13.33 per hour. How could we refuse. Haha! We've been offered caravan park work in the past and have always declined, as hospitality and caravan park tourism aren't industries we want to get involved with. However, the romanticised story of the 'Resort' made us smitten with the place so we agreed to work six days a week, ten hours a day for the next three weeks.  We lasted seven days... But first back to the romance... the Mount Gipps pub, located in an unincorporated council area was shut in the late 1980's and left abandoned until it was rediscovered by passerby and local businessman, Scott Smith who created a vision to renovate the pub and turn the area into a luxury spa-cabin, caravan park, camp ground, pub, restaurant, conference centre and day-spa complex. Ambitious, absolutely! Admittedly the restoration of the original Mount Gipps pub looks terrific and lures you into the vision, but honestly we believe the project encompasses far too many sub-projects to be viable, and from what we can tell, the owners don't appear to have an understanding of the caravan market, but I guess as that age old adage goes, only time will tell...
During our seven day flogging, I mean employment, we cleaned multiple bathrooms, the camp kitchen, completed more random cleaning around the bar, deck and entertainment areas, Shovel had a crash course in sprinkler operations and maintenance and cleaned daily the filters for the 'Resorts' water supply that runs directly from Stephens Reserve located a few kilometres up the road. The Reserve's water level is quite low, therefore Shovel was cleaning thick mud from the eight large sock-like filters. We also assisted in yard work, Shovel was incredibly impressive driving the mad-max style ancient equipment and we got dirty shovelling, moving individual sheets of gypsum, picking up after the tradies and trenching. We also worked through 35+ degree temperatures, a huge afternoon-long dust storm, a day of drenching rain and retrieved the Managers dog, Ranger who took us on an adventure and admittedly our funnest moment of the week (although don't tell the owners) as he took-off into outback along a dry creek bed for about two kilometres, chasing kangaroos. Despite being completely exhausted and in desperate need of a drink Ranger had had the time of his life. Not surprisingly we were ready to hit the road again after a week...
In 1993 a diverse group of artists including refugees and Indigenous Australians were united by 53 tonnes of sandstone in the red-dirt desert, north of Broken Hill to take part in the month-long 'Broken Hill Sculpture Symposium.' Each artist spent the month sleeping, eating, getting to know each other and most importantly carving in their desert camp. The result is the now famous living desert sculptures outdoor gallery. The works are immense and the stories touching as you walk the route admiring the labour intense nature of the works and the environment in which they were created. 
  After six weeks meandering down the east coast of Australia it was time for us to head inland again. Our next stop, Goulburn in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. This road trip had we of taken the A48 through the Great Dividing Range would have only had us travelling about 140kms today, instead of the 200kms it ended up taking, however upon researching the route, in particular an eight kilometre section of the Illawarra Highway, known as Macquarie Pass encouraged us to travel a little further north around the range. This notorious section of road, has been classified by dangerousroads.org as one of the most famous roads in New South Wales and a road that 'designed in 1898... bears the legacy of its era.' Despite many grey nomads throwing caution to the wind and taking on the A48 whilst towing a caravan, once we saw this video on youtube we opted to leave the heroism to the grey nomads and save Florence from potential jack-knifing disaster. Taking this longer route via the B88 we coasted into Goulburn smoothly, with our caravan in tact and the afternoon left to explore the area.
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