Silver City

It was nearly 7am when sun finally came up and after a quick breakfast I replaced the thrust bearing the jockey wheel. Before too long we were on the move again and had left Port Augusta behind.

We noticed that this time round it was very green from Ceduna onwards whereas in 2009 everything was dry until we came into Port Augusta.

It was sunny when we left this morning but as soon as we got to Horrocks Pass, in the hills East of Port Augusta, we were in cloud and rain. Once we left the hills behind and drove through Wilmington we were back in the flat country which was overcast but only with a few sprinkles of rain.

On our way to Peterborough we passed through Orroroo - now there's a name made up with only two letters of the alphabet! In Peterborough we refuelled before heading for the 285km track to Broken Hill.

After travelling a total of 415km we reached Broken Hill just after 1pm, checked in, had lunch and then off to the tourist information, a drive around town and the lookouts to get an overview of the town.

The street names are all mining related, Cobalt Street, Wolfram Street, Crystal Lane. Even chemical compounds are used for street names: Chloride Street, Oxide Street, Sulphide Street and Bromide Street.

I also found it interesting that small, old, miners cottages can be found on the side of a hill and have excellent views. Mind you, the view is onto a huge heap of dirt where the old silver mine used to be.

The last activity for the day was a visit to the local Royal Flying Doctor Service base which is the Head Quarters for the South Eastern region. They provide a little tour of the facility and the hanger combined with a film and a museum which illustrates the history of the RFDS.

By the time it got dark we were back at the caravan ready to for quiet night.

Here is the link to today's travel map.