Blog 13 Peterborough – Broken Hill – Saturday 18th July 2015

Saturday 18th July

Emus everywhere we looked

Moose just witnessed an emu poo

We are up an moving early this morning, trying to find the cottage ruins. At this point all I can see are Emus, they are everywhere. Moose rang his mum to confirm we were in the right area. After listening to the call I suggested we look to see if there was a road running parallel to the one we were on. 

The Wool Shed

Sure enough there was. We drove down Parnaroo road with our eyes peeled, just as we thought we weren't going to find it I seen an old wool shed which we had been told would be near the cottage. 

The next bend and there the tumbling cottage stood. 

Although some of its walls are falling over, you could get the idea of the size and shape of it. Even a peg in the wall where gran would hang her coat was there as if she had just popped out. A little further up the hill is a larger ruin but we will have to do research to find out who lived there. We have a very Happy Moose 

The larger ruin up the hill

Cactus catches my eyes. It seems to pop up in the weirdest places, usually around ruins. I wonder if it is from people coming to look at the ruins carrying seed on their vehicles or shoes, or was it here from the early days?

Moose’s Gran was 14 when her mother died and she left home to head to the big smoke to make a living in the early 1900s. Quite a feat for a 14 year old.

The old wool shed held many a Parnaroo ball which Moose’s mum remembers attending though at that time she didn't know the little cottage down the way, used by shearers was her mums’ childhood home.

Now heading in the direction of Yunta, it’s a long drive through flat sheep country. The Flinders ranges are in the distance on my left and in front of us. It looks like we could have taken a more direct route from the Flinders ranges to here but there's a bloody big salt lake in between. Drizzly rain causes the window wipers to lazily slide across the screen, and it’s a very cool 13 degrees outside. Yunta, another country town consisting of a pub, post office, tennis court, closed down road house and 2 working ones

In the distance is movement, it takes a moment to realise it’s a goods Train with about 60 carriages. It winds its way towards us.Another little town pops up: Mannahill a railway town with a pub, roadhouse, a police station, small air field and a train station 

It’s 1.15 pm as we pull into Olary which is another small township or rather what remains of one. It consists of one pub and a couple of closed down stores plus the ruins of a bakery. Where we have parked is in South Australia but cross the train tracks and we would be in New South Wales. The lady in the café which had originally been a hotel in the good old days, told me there were two towns of equal size. This one Olary with the current building being in the centre of town and across the tracks where we can see the signage on ruins indicating two more pubs was Cockburn. Both towns had a population of 1500 people at their peak.

We have lost half an hour crossing the border so it’s now 3 instead of 2.30. The coffee machine was broke – someone could make a mint either fixing coffee machines or selling new ones to these businesses so it was instant coffee for me – beggars couldn’t be choosers. Goats can be seen roaming freely. A murder of crows’ flies over head and at one point I seen a fox. Other than that not much is happening.

 A sign indicates we are entering Broken Hill. A huge Solar plant catches our eyes. Actual name the Nyngan Solar plant. Construction had started in January 2014 with it only being finished in June this year it takes up approximately 250 hectares of land. It will produce approximately 230,000 megawatt-hours of clean renewable electricity each year, enough energy to supply about 33,000 homes in NSW. Pretty impressive stuff.

It’s funny but I was expecting a dusty little mining town when Moose said he was taking me to Broken Hill but I couldn't have been more wrong. The road is wide leading us into a regional hub. I have memories of my dad, working as a furniture removalist often heading here from Adelaide with a truck full in the 70s. I'm not sure how different it is today to back then. Many of the houses would date back before that time. There's a mix of small corrugated iron miners huts, federation homes with wide verandahs and modern day homes. Sadly the long street of little individual stores seems to have more empty properties than occupied ones. I'm not sure if this is because of less people or the fact there's a shopping centre hidden somewhere with air conditioning. 

We drive through town looking for a hardware store, for a new plug. (Moose’s ingenious mending didn't quite work), I see a sign for "living desert sculptures" then another for Pro Harts gallery. I'm not a huge fan of some of his work but I'm incredibly curious about his techniques and had no idea he lived here in broken hill. Driving up another long street there's a shop front with Julie Hart art gallery on it and further along another member of the Hart families art gallery. I'm sure you can imagine I'm a little excited with all this art around me and can't wait to get out to see it. Moose reckons I'm having an "art attack" maybe it should be a “Hart” attack!!!!

On our way into town I googled caravan parks which there were a few. We choose the broken hill tourist park as it was dog friendly, offered a decent size parking spot and appeared before us as I read the ad out. It's quite huge and nice. There's a huge camp kitchen across from us which I've eyed off for an art or sewing attack. I wish we'd arrived on Friday though as they had "nibbles with canvas" night. This is where you join an artist in a big shed across the road for an art class with nibbles!

The air turned from extremely cold to freezing so Pumpkin soup with Moose’s speciality - fresh made damper for dinner was a perfect choice.
Quiet night of TV , blog writing while moose watched 5 mins of Tour de France then fell into a deep sleep.

Pioneer Moose & Excited Moz signing Off x