To Broken Hill to find Pro Hart...and much much more in Silverton

 I led the way... (this is really just to prove that I do drive for those who think that Matt does all the driving...) from Port Pirie on.  We stopped at Peterborough for a cuppa and checked out the really cool info centre which is a really old train.  Would you love one of those in you backyard!

 Just another oversized thing...there seemed to be heaps of those on the road from Broken Hill to Adelaide...

 Beautiful old houses...I love looking at them and taking pics of them.

 WOW! Another border crossing...although it seemed to be a little quiet...suddenly we crossed. The more we cross, the more boring they become.

 At the border.  How old is this sign?

 Time for a rest.  Not far to Broken Hill, but time to stop for the night.

Finally, as soon as we have left South Australia, we see the emblem of their state!

First stop in Broken Hill was the Pro Hart Gallery.  How fantastic!  I absolutely loved it...I hope that the rest did (??)

The reward of a milkshake at the end was gooooood!

We decided to go out Silverton (25km out of Broken Hill) to stay.  Pop 50!  Our smallest town yet.  One place to stay - Penrose Park.  Pick your own spot wherever you want and only & $18 per night for us!  Brilliant!! Worth every bit.

Great plants for the desert in Silverton.

One of the galleries in town

Outside the John Huges Gallery there were these really cool painted cars (emus)

 ....Looking at you!

 This is covered in bottle tops

 One of the big attractions in Silverton is the Mad Max memorabilia...

 and the lookout to the Mundi Mundi plains where Mad Max, Priscilla, and heaps of commercials were filmed.

 There is the odd donkey around...

At the new (7 week old) Mad Max museum being run by the mad fan (in a great way) Adrian

 Adrian's car number plate..I think this says it all

 I found a sock knitter here, Jacquie, who inspired me to start knitting socks.  Life is not too short to knit socks.

This is the road to where the next Mad Max 4 will be filmed - put off until 2012 due to the landscape to GREEN!!!

 A bridge that was smashed down during recent flooding!

 The Umberumerka Dam - was empty at the start of the year - can you believe that!

 A little rumble over afternoon tea!

 Mundi Mundi

 The old Gaol - one of the best museums that I have been to

 The memorial at Silverton

 Our campsite

 campfires there...nice

Coober Pedy...is this for real?

It's flat out here...real flat, until these:

 ...then we knew that we were close to Coober Pedy. See that green stuff - that is not meant to be there, but it has been raining so, so much that things have been growing here!  (and roads are being shut)

We didn't get to go to the Breakaways (they were that-a-away) due to that wet stuff lieing on the ground.  "Road Closed"

 When the rain stops, the sun comes out, even if it is at the end of a day of driving through howling winds and rain

Now, Coober Pedy, for some reason is built underground (2/3 houses apparently) due to the HEAT!!!  We were freezing.  It was 15 degrees when we got there.  Polar fleeces and thermals on.  We camped at the Oasis caravan park (they had made the effort to drill into the rock and plant some trees, so we were lucky to have some trees there.  Coober Pedy, we found, was a town stuck in time.  The signs were from the 60's and 70's, the buildings were probably the same.  Derelict cars and machinery all over the place, wind howling through with no trees to break it.  Art made out of rubbish.  Locals were great characters lost in time and place.  Came for a week and stayed for fourty years.  Waiting for that big moment.  A sense of lawlessness. Two nights was certainly enough for us to wait for the William Creek road to dry out, see the sights, and eat the most delightful pizza at John's pizza shop (great food here! Who would have thought?!).

Up at the "Small Winch" where a man from Hong Kong makes art, digs for opals and drags tourists into his house, turns the lights on to look at jewellery, then realises that they are not buying, and turns them off, and shoos the tourists out again.

Chimney stacks in the mounds, a good sign that there is a house underneath

 Great old cars

 Carpark to the "Big Winch"...had a ghost town feel to it

Yep

Rusty old machinery, still being used...

When you can't grow trees, build one

 The blower (all around the place here) a NZ invention.  "Quite ineffective because it has to suck and blow" David, Old Timers Museum

fence lines

After a bit of noodling (a great word for looking for opals in the scrap heaps) a bit of looking at the old mining equipment

 or reading mags

People's backyards

street sign

 street scape

 signs, signs, signs....

outta here....roads open, back onto the dirt