Broken Hill

 Walking to Target. The alleys of Broken Hill are surprisingly similar to the back alleys of Crows Nest or say Balmain - functional, not for looking at.

The first day is a bit of a disaster; school work takes forever, and everyone gets stressed out. After much promising, we pick up a bit of hot wheels track. Finally in the late afternoon we go for a wander around, book the kids in for a haircut; their mattes are starting to become dreadlocks.

 A prime example of Louis's work. It is pretty funny, although at the time he did it, we were going nuts. (as we are today besides; it's like herding cats to get them to work)

This is more like it! The road to Day Dream Mine. The road in and out was gorgeous.

The room of secret societies stuff in Silverton Gaol museum.

Day Dream Mine - signals to say lift, lower or send help! 

The next day, we start school at 7am during brekky, get haircuts at 9.30am, then get to the Day Dream Underground mine. They show us one tiny stone house, but I'm sure there were bigger tin shacks. The entrance way is so low, you need to go down the inclined shaft backwards. There is a claustrophic lady who the guide talked into coming in. By the end, she is nearly hyperventilating at the exit.

The guide was really nutty. He talked about all the ways people died in the mines, eg not opening the carriage properly to empty the cart resulted in a ride with the cart to certain death.

Beautiful Silverton - Australia's liveliest ghost town. Host to Mad Max films, Razorback and some other teleseries. The pub has many photos, such as Mel Gibson playing cards and smoking with the bad punks in the movie, between takes.

Went to Silverton for lunch, then the Gaol museum. The boys hunted for artifacts from a list on a sheet - a good time. It rained; pretty rare.

Oo la la, raunchy night wear from yesteryear.

The rules for women teachers eg rule no. 2 - you must not keep company with men. Good luck with that.

Rare rain in Silverton - the guy said they should get it pretty regularly, about 1 to 200mm as far as I can see.