Further adventures: Part 3 Silverton

Silverton is an almost ghost town 27 kilometres from Broken Hill. It's good for a side trip. The town seems (and is) in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the Barrier Ranges with a few buildings dotting the vast mulga plains, street signs to long-forgotten streets, ruins, some houses and a couple of art galleries. The population is now around 50 but judging by the 'For Sale' signs we saw, may be less.

Spot the ruined building in the distance.

In its heyday in the 1880s the town had 3,000 people, with municipal chambers, a hospital, gaol, churches, a Masonic Lodge, doctors, solicitors, a school, a newspaper, a railway to Broken Hill, and a footy team!  All thanks to the silver and lead deposits found nearby. As Broken Hill developed it went into decline and by 1899 was virtually abandoned. Many of the buildings were dismantled, relocated to Broken Hill and rebuilt there, hence the very few buildings that remain.
 

More ruins in the background.

We followed the Heritage Trail pamphlet and discovered a compelling landscape, ripe for photography. No wonder the town has become the backdrop for so many films and television commercials, among them Mad Max, Priscilla, Mission Impossible 2, and the 1970 horror film Wake in Fright.

As with many outback towns it has its quirky qualities. There were a few art galleries featuring local landscapes, paintings and postcards with typical Australian humour, and sculptures depicting weird animals. A number of wrecked cars were colourfully or bizarrely decorated.

I loved the sense of abandonment yet survival as seen in the next three photos.

The interpretation signs at each site helped to give a picture of what life was like. Outside the St Carthage Catholic church was a photo of former days.

And what would an outback town be without a dog! What the donkeys were for I don't know, but they looked content.

Here are two shots of me enjoying our day out. The first one shows me in a mining cage - a lift that could transport 40 miners to the depth of the mine.



And here I am in the heart of Silverton. You can see what a bit of rain does to the countryside. Evidently there had been quite a bit of rain in the preceding week.

On the way back we came across flocks of emus again. I thought this shot was great - an optical illusion, but doesn't it look like one emu with two heads??? Well, I think so.