Planning a trip to Broken Hill
Visitor Information
The Broken Hill Visitors Information Centre, Blende and Bromide streets, Broken Hill, NSW 2880 (tel. 08/8080 3560; www.visitbrokenhill.com.au), is open daily from 8:30am to 5pm. The National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS) office is at 183 Argent St. (tel. 08/8088 5933); and the Royal Automobile Association of South Australia, which offers reciprocal services to other national and international auto-club members, is at 261 Argent St. (tel. 08/8088 4999).
Note: The area code in Broken Hill is 08, the same as the South Australia code, not 02, the New South Wales code.
What Time Is It, Anyway? -- Broken Hill runs its clocks on Central Standard Time, to correspond with South Australia. The surrounding country, however, runs a half-hour faster at Eastern Standard Time.
Getting Around
Free, volunteer-led tours depart from the Visitors Information Centre at 10am on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from March to October. Silver City Tours, 380 Argent St. (tel. 08/8087 6956; www.silvercitytours.com.au), conducts tours of the city and surroundings every day apart from Monday. Half-day city tours take around 4 hours and cost A$69 for adults and A$39 for children. They offers other tours, such as a Saturday tour to White Cliffs (A$175 for adults, A$110 for kids).
Other good operators are Tri State Safaris (tel. 08/8088 2389; www.tristate.com.au), which runs many multiday tours into the Outback, including 1-day tours to Mutawintji National Park for A$165 and White Cliffs for A$168. It's well worth doing some solid research before you leave home.
Hertz (tel. 08/8087 2719) rents four-wheel-drive vehicles.
Getting There
By car, take the Great Western Highway from Sydney to Dubbo, and then the Mitchell Highway to the Barrier Highway, which will take you to Broken Hill. Southern Australian Airlines (book through Qantas, tel. 13 13 13 in Australia) also connects Broken Hill to Adelaide, Melbourne, and Mildura.
Greyhound Australia (tel. 13 14 99 in Australia, or 07/4690 9950; www.greyhound.com.au) runs buses from Adelaide for around A$60; the trip takes 7 hours. The 16-hour trip from Sydney costs from A$96.
