Silverton

Our first trip this morning was out West to the Umberumberka reservoir which provides some of the water for Broken Hill. Along the way we stopped at a lookout which gives a great view over the Mundi Mundi Plains which stretch out for an eternity.

Just below the lookout is the location where some of the scenes for Mad Max 2 were filmed. Although right now the plains don't like the dusty, sandy outback landscape from the movie but instead, represent a lush and blooming wildflower area full of grass bushes and other plants. We have also come across a number of flood damaged river crossing as a reminder of the recent floods.

This location was also going to be used for Mad Max 4. A 4km track has already been graded for filming, over 150 vehicles are stored (under lock and key) in Broken Hill and film studio was also built there. However, the landscape is too lush and green for the movie and it was announced very recently that filming will take place in another location - probably Namibia.

On the way back we called into Silverton to see the Mad Max 2 museum which has only been open for a year or two. Adrian and Linda, both Mad Max fanatics, have migrated over here from Yorkshire and opened up the museum in this remote location.

Half way back to Broken Hill we turned off onto a dirt road for 13km which took us to the Daydream mine, an Silver mine which commenced operation 130 years ago with miners from Cornwell. We went on an underground mine tour which took us nearly 100ft below the surface where we saw a couple of silver deposits.

In this area they mine Galena which contains Silver, Zinc, Lead and Gold. Around Broken Hill township, the major content of Galena is Zinc and Lead but around Silverton its primarily Silver.

Back in Broken Hill we had a Milkshake and Waffles at the iconic 50's style Bells Milk bar. Our next stop was the Minerals Museum where we learned about the Broken Hill Lode (the underground ore body) and how it came into being. It was amazing to see that the underground mining area is much larger that Broken Hill itself and located right beneath the town. Apparently the underground blasts can be heard in the town every day.

On our way back to the caravan we stopped at the supermarket, refuelled and finally arrived very tired after a big day out.