Side Trips

Visiting a Ghost Town

At least 44 movies have been filmed in the Wild West town of Silverton (pop. 50), 23km (14 miles) northwest of Broken Hill. It's the Wild West Australian-style, though, with camels instead of horses sometimes placed in front of the Silverton Pub, which is well worth a visit for its kitschy Australian appeal. Silverton once had a population of 3,000 following the discovery of silver here in 1882, but within 7 years almost everyone had left. There are some good art galleries here, as well as a restored jail and hotel.

Discovering Aboriginal Handprints

Mutawintji National Park (also known and pronounced by its old name, Mootwingee), 130km (81 miles) northeast of Broken Hill, was one of the most important spiritual meeting places for Aborigines on the continent. Groups came from all over to peck out abstract engravings on the rocks with sharpened quartz tools and to sign their handprints to show they belonged to the place. The ancient, weathered fireplaces are still here, laid out like a giant map to show where each visiting group came from. Hundreds of ocher outlines of hands and animal paws, some up to 30,000 years old, are stenciled on rock overhangs. The fabulous 2-hour Outback trip from Broken Hill to Mootwingee is along red-dirt tracks not really suitable for two-wheel-drives. It should not be attempted after a heavy rain.

Mootwingee Heritage Tours (tel. 08/8088 7000) organizes 3-hour inspections of the historic sites leaving from the Mutawintji National Park campsite at 11am on Saturdays and Wednesdays from April to October. The tours cost A$20 (US$18/£9) for adults, A$5 (US$4.50/£2.25) for children, and A$40 (US$36/£18) for families. The tours may be canceled in very hot weather. The NPWS office in Broken Hill (tel. 08/8088 5933) also has details. You can camp at the Homestead Creek campground for A$11 (US$10/£5) a night. It has its own water supply.

Exploring White Cliffs

White Cliffs, 290km (180 miles) east of Broken Hill, is an opal-mining town that's bigger than it looks. To escape the summer heat, most houses are built underground in mine shafts, where the temperature is a constant 72°F (22°C). Unlike Lightning Ridge (below), which produces mainly black opals, White Cliffs is known for its less valuable white opals -- as is Coober Pedy in South Australia. Prospecting started in 1889, when kangaroo shooters found the colorful stones on the ground. A year later, the rush was on, and by the turn of the 20th century, about 4,000 people were digging and sifting in a lawless, waterless hell of a place. White Cliffs is smaller than Coober Pedy and less touristy -- which is its great charm. You also have more freedom to wander around the old opal tailings here, which is discouraged in Coober Pedy. Given the choice between White Cliffs and Lightning Ridge, I'd opt for the latter -- though if you have time, you should see both.

The countryside here looks like an inverted moonscape, pimpled with bone-white heaps of gritty clay dug from the 50,000 mine shafts that surround the town. These days, White Cliffs is renowned for its eccentricity. Take Jock's Place, for instance, an underground museum full to the beams with junk pulled from old mine shafts. Then there's a house made of beer flagons, and a 9-hole dirt golf course where locals play at night with fluorescent green balls.

A Fabulous Place to Enjoy the Sunset

Just outside Broken Hill, in the Living Desert Nature Park, is the best collection of sculptures this side of Stonehenge. Twelve sandstone obelisks, up to 3m (10 ft.) high and carved totemlike by artists from as far away as Georgia, Syria, Mexico, and the Tiwi Islands, make up the Sculpture Symposium. Surrounding them on all sides is brooding mulga scrub. It's fantastic at sunset.