Frommer's Australia from $50 a Day 13th Edition - To Parent Directory

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CHAPTER 4 . NEW SOUTH WALES
The scenery is a huge canvas with a restricted palette; blood red for the dirt,
straw yellow for the blotches of Mitchell grass, a searing blue for the surreally
large sky. There is room to be yourself in the Outback, and you’ll soon find that
personalities often tilt toward the eccentric. It’s a hard-working place, too, where
miners and farmers try to eke out a living in Australia’s hard center.
BROKEN HILL
1,157km (717 miles) W of Sydney; 508km (315 miles) NE of Adelaide
At heart, Broken Hill—or “Silver City” as it’s been nicknamed—is still very
much a hard-working, hard-drinking mining town. Its beginnings date back to
1883 when the trained eye of a boundary rider named Charles Rasp noticed
something odd about the craggy rock outcrops at a place called the Broken Hill.
Today, the city’s main drag, Argent Street, bristles with finely crafted colonial
mansions, Heritage homes, hotels, and public buildings. Look deeper and you
see the town’s quirkiness. Around one corner you’ll find the radio station built
to resemble a giant wireless set with round knobs for windows, and around
another the headquarters of the Housewives Association, which ruled the town
with an iron apron for generations. Then there’s the Palace Hotel—made
famous in the movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert—with its
high painted walls and a mural of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus on the ceiling two
flights up.
Traditionally a hard-drinking but religious town, Broken Hill has 23 pubs
(down from 73 in its heyday) and plenty of churches, as well as a Catholic cathedral,
a synagogue, and a mosque to serve its 21,000 inhabitants.
ESSENTIALS
GETTING THERE By Car Take the Great Western Highway from Sydney
to Dubbo, then the Mitchell Highway to the Barrier Highway, which will take
you to Broken Hill. Southern Australian Airlines (book through Qantas, & 13
13 13 in Australia; www.qantas.com.au) also connects Broken Hill to Adelaide,
Melbourne, and Mildura.
The Indian Pacific train stops here on its way to Perth twice a week. The fare
from Sydney is A$415 (US$270) for adults and A$283 (US$184) for children in
a first-class sleeper, A$329 (US$214) for adults and A$198 (US$129) for children
in an economy sleeper, and A$117 (US$76) for adults and A$53 (US$34)
for children in an economy seat. Call Great Southern Railways (& 08/8213
4530) for more information and bookings, or check out the timetables and fares
on their website (www.gsr.com.au).
Greyhound-Pioneer (& 13 20 30 in Australia; www.greyhound.com.au)
runs buses from Adelaide for A$58 (US$38); the trip takes 7 hours. The 16-hour
trip from Sydney costs from A$93 (US$60).
VISITOR INFORMATION The Broken Hill Visitors Information Centre,
at Blende and Bromide streets, Broken Hill, NSW 2880 (& 08/8087 6077;
fax 08/8088 5209; www.murrayoutback.org.au; tourist@pcpro.net.au), is open
daily from 8:30am to 5pm. The National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS)
office is at 183 Argent St. (& 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. (& 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.