On Friday we wandered out to the AgFair field day at the Broken Hill racecourse. It was very interesting for old country people like us to see the displays of equipment etc. We found a local small goods supplier Mount Pleasant Butcher (08 8568 2019 with the best salamis. He makes salamis up to 6 feet long. Very tasty. We also bought some local olives and pistachios from Limestone Station (08 8087 6731) which they tell us is just off the road to Silverton. We have rationing ourselves to one salami beer stick per night with a glass of wine; oh the joys of travel. We have not cracked our supplies of olives and pistachios.
There are several things that strike you when you first drive into Broken Hill. The first is that you have to leave all you fruit in roadside bins 100km out of town because of the fruit fly quarantine area of South Australia. Second 50km out of town you have to wind you clock back 30 minutes because Broken Hill operates on Central Australia time (Adelaide time). Thirdly that while it is NSW the dominant football code here is AFL.
At first all this Adelaide centric focus is a bit odd. Even the tour guide talked about "over in NSW". But as the guide explained the first transport to and from Broken Hill come from Adelaide. The Darling River being the main transport route. All the wool and wheat went down the Darling into the Murray and out to Port Adelaide for shipping to London. When Broken Hill was establish the miners needed a railway to transport their minerals. The NSW government refused to build a railway link. South Australia built a line to Cockburn on the border just 30km away. A private railway was then built by the Silverton Tramway Company from Broken Hill to link to the SA line at Cockburn. All the silver lead and zinc was henceforth shiped to smelters in South Australia and then exported from there.
Another interesting fact we discovered is that before the landing at Gallipoli in 1915, two Turkish immigrants (Turkey had recently allied with Germany) fired on a train load of miners and their families going for a picnic. Four people were killed and 20 wounded. The Turks were hunted down and both were killed in a shoot out with troops and police several days later. World War One was very much in Australia before the ANZACs landed on the beaches of Gallipoli.
During our time in Broken Hill we have been going to artist's studios. Jenelle has really enjoyed been able to chat to some of the artists and even watch them working. Most of the galleries are at the artist's homes which makes it even more personal. One artist we visited Eric McCormick was very generous with his time and even invited us along to the openning night of an exhibition in which he had some works on show. The exhibition was called "Carte Postale" because all the works were basically postcard size 5 inches by 7 inches.
The opening night started at 6.30pm, we arrive at about a quarter to seven and the place was packed. When you have 15 artists showing in a gallery about the size of normal living room it doesn't take too many artists and friends to fill the place up. We had a good look around and found the work very interesting. Eric came and talked to us for a while about the works. The people were really friendly and chatty.
To our surprise the light around Broken Hill is quite soft; not the harsh bright light we would have expected in the Australian outback. The landscape as you can see in the photos in our earlier posts are pinks, grays, fawns, powder blues.The colours of the landscape are softer and muted, it maybe the time of the year or it maybe because everything is so "lush" after plenty of rain. Not the strong reds, blues and greens we normally associate with Australia; those strong colours are here but not all the time. We are surprised the more you look we even see the trees and colours of Pro's work. We may be contradicting ourselves but when you travel with a colourist, it is very clear that the landscape is forever changing.
Another thing that has struck us about the art in Broken Hill is the quality of the framing. The mats are themselves a work of art. Although the Carte Postale exhibition was basically only 5" x 7" most were framed up to around 15" x 20" sort of size incorporating really creative matt design. One artist told Jenelle that because there is quite a lot of competition sales amongst the local artists, quite a bit of effort goes into making the framing sell.
For a couple days we have driven past a house with a sign on the fence for "Quandong Pies". One of the rules we have set ourselves as we set off to explore the world is to be open to the odd and the unusual things we come across along the way. This morning we stopped and Jenelle went in a bought our first Quandong pie. What a revelation! With cream it is very delicious.
Housing here is very cheap. There are miner's cottages for rent for $120 to $150 per week. Really good modern houses for $250 - $300 per week. One lady we meet at the opening night told us she had moved to Broken Hill to teach and was renting a house/gallery fully furnish for $120 per week. Any wonder there are so many artists in Broken Hill. The cost of living (food, clothes, petrol,) is the same as on the coast, everything you need is in Broken Hill and the accommodation is as cheap as chips. There are houses for sale for $80,000 to $100,000.
To top off our opening night experience we won the door raffle; a huge box of fruit and vegetable. Needless to say for the last two days we have been living on fruit, stir fried vegetables and yummy salads.
And that's another thing that is unusual about Broken Hill, not only is the price of food the same as the coast, the quality of the fruit and vegetables are superior.
Yesterday we went to visit the Mineralogical Museum. Not that big but very modern and professional for a private show. Excellent audio-visual explanation of the formation of the Broken Hill mineral deposit. Display of all sorts of minerals and gems mined locally. It makes you want to go out, buy a prospecting hammer and go smashing rocks; who knows when the next Broken Hill can be found. We can see how easy it would be to get the prospecting bug. In the Museum is displayed the "Silver Tree"; a sculpture in solid silver of a gum tree about 2 feet tall with figures (animal and human) around it's base telling the story of Broken Hill.
Another little know fact about Broken Hill is that during WWII when it looked likely that the Japanese would invade all the Australian gold reserves were moved to Broken Hill for safe storage. You don't really think about these sort of housekeeping issues when you think about war and invasion.
Surprising Broken Hill has very little graffiti. One reason for this may be that there are a lot of murals on the walls of buildings. Some really excellent work.
The train station murals done by Geoff DeMain;
The community centre.....
Shop wall.....
