Queensland – Mar 2022 – Broken Hill

The Oodla Wirra stop proved to be perfectly suitable for our needs. Despite being very close to the highway the noise was not an issue. It’s not a highly trafficked route, so this helps.

The Big Dice

First stop for the day was The Big Dice about 20 km beyond Yunta in our Easterly direction of travel. It took us two goes to find the exit off the highway to see these and we were somewhat under whelmed by what we found. Still, this meant another item checked off out Big Things journey.

We have no clue regarding the origin of these dice, each around 1 metre cubed and seemingly made of painted concrete. We don’t even know how long they have been here or whether or not they are being maintained. It doesn’t look as though they’ve had a coat of paint in some time.

New South Wales

From the dice we continued towards the SA/NSW border. Here we stopped for the obligatory border crossing photo at Cockburn, and the completely optional and very unwanted encounter with some idiots discarded box of empty coronas. I think I hit the box with the passenger side rear tyre of the car but we came through intact.

Goats!

From the border it’s a quick 45 km drive into Broken Hill, the most interesting parts of which were the goats. Apparently feral goats inhabit this area in the hundreds of thousands. We had no idea. Several times we had to slow while goats meandered across the highway. They have also become a part of the local economy with graziers rounding them up and selling them for meat. For some they have become a significant part of their incomes.

Broken Hill

For our overnight stop we stayed at Broken Hill Tourist Park. The park was undergoing some updates and consequently some of the facilities weren’t working as they should. Our spot was in the rear section which is accessed by a bridge across a ditch. I assume the ditch is something of a creek when there is enough rain, but it was bone dry when we were there. I mention the park updates and the ditch as the people across the ditch had to run their hose across it in order to find a working tap. After trying several power outlets we had to do the same to find working power. We also needed to borrow a long extension cord from park management in order to reach. We ended up having quite the chat with these ditch sharing neighbours while their dog and Neo had a fun time playing. Neo is quite the ice-breaker.

Next time we are here we’ll stay longer, but for this trip all we could do was to search out some of the known photo ops. First stop was The Big Ant, where we also saw an old mine shaft head frame and other old mining items. This was followed by a short drive up the hill to the The Big Bench.