Photos to follow
When you wake up in a subterranean sleeping place you have
little idea of either the time or the conditions outside. I imagine that one
gets used to this. As it happened we awoke at about 07:30 and it turned out
that the sky was blue outside and the day unseasonably warm. Indeed we saw a high
of 27 degrees on our drive compared with the normal range for this time of year
of 8 – 16 degrees. Terry and Enid were good enough to allow me the use of their
ablutionary facilities and I readied myself for the day.
We made our way to the dining room to find a staff about as
enthusiastic something that is not particularly enthusiastic. One was playing
his guitar to the assembled breakfasters and one was idling on his tablet. None
was actually providing any assistance to diners nor clearing anything up. There
wasn’t much to clear. As I have remarked before I cannot eat cardboard cereal
from a cardboard box. I do not know what the other diners thought about things.
Perhaps they didn’t care. Two men were sitting side by side in front of the TV
eating their breakfast and saying nothing.
There was a heritage centre in the Underground Motel and we
took a look around. It consisted of copies of old newspaper articles and
photographs hung on the walls of a series of underground rooms. It was
interesting; like many of these sorts of exhibits you cannot help wondering
what life must have been like for these people. And then you see a war memorial
and it makes you wonder some more.
I did find an interesting snippet that was contained in a
newspaper dated 13 November 2016. The newspaper was called The Western Life and
contained an article entitled “Are you pushing trade?”
Good sentiments and still applicable today though possible
we would use different words. But the article gave itself away at its
conclusion.
But then I suppose it was pushing its own trade.
We settled our account at the motel and pushed off. We
started with a visit to the White Cliffs cemetery which stands on a bleak piece
of land some way from the town. The road to the cemetery is a dirt road and in
the sunshine was bright red. The cemetery is fairly large with perhaps 50 or so
discernible graves. A plaque at the entrance informs the visitor that there are
perhaps 500 buried there. I imaging that many graves were marked with a timber
cross that would long since have perished.
The local council clearly has had some difficulty with the
use of the cemetery as there is a sign saying that you cannot just rock up and
bury a body. You need proper authorisation.
We drove back with the intention of visiting a local
jeweller who makes things in opal. Her name is Linda George. We were assisted
by a map purporting to show the streets (if that’s what they are) of White
Cliffs. Linda George’s emporium is clearly marked. It is doubtful, however, to
what degree the features marked on the map correspond to the physical features
around us. After some serious driving around we did find our destination. I
have had a yen for a while to get a pair of cufflinks with opal. As it happened
she had a two suitably sized stones that I am having set into silver cufflinks.
She also used old pottery to fashion into jewellery and I bought a pair of old
jewellery cufflinks as well. The G looked as a few bits and pieces but did not
succumb to th retail lure.
White Cliffs is packed with places dealing in opal. One
other such is called the Stubbie House and sports a wall that is made of the
ends of 50,000 old bottles or stubbies. The man there was a chatty chappy who
is, like many people in White Cliffs, an opal miner. He has not found an opal
since last October so there are thing pickings. He described opal mining as an
addiction. His son, too, mines for opals. The G invested in some soap which
uses opal grains as its exfoliating ingredient. So I cannot say that she did
not come away with a precious stone although she will be flushing it down the
sink.
There was no way we could leave White Cliffs without a visit
to the local store. A sign on the store made it clear that requests for credit
would not be tolerated. We further invested in the White Cliffs’ economy by
purchasing a bottle of water and two bananas. The store offered food but given
our Underground Motel experience, we did not feel that there would be an oasis
in the culinary desert that is White Cliffs. And anyway we had only just had
breakfast (except me; I had a banana). Across the road from the store is the White
Cliffs Hotel-Motel (it is both a hotel and a motel). It architecture was driven
by the desire to be as featureless as possible. I expect that by night it is a
hive of companionship and stories about the opal that got away.
The only way to Broken Hill is the way we came; back to
Wilcannia so we decided to head to the other eating-place called Miss Barrett’s
Café. The drive back was uneventful – we passed 3 cars in the 100kms and saw a range
of wild beasts most notably black cattle. We parked up at Miss Barrett’s and the
good woman herself served us. The G took a slice of Hummingbird Cake. It was
not insubstantial and exetremely tasty. I had a slide of lemon meringue pie (LMP)
which was made in a different way to that which I an used to. The LMP of my
youth was made with lemon curd; I di not like it because I wasn’t keen on the
tartness of the lemon curd. Miss Bassett’s LMOP was made with a lemon
confection using condensed milk. It was, however, very good.
We were entertained while eating by a couple of Aboriginal
women who worked on the local radio station as presenters. They told us of a
man who had days ago come back to Wilcannia for a reunion of the Boomerangs and
who had died at the age of 42. His funeral was this very day. They also told us
that rain came whenever someone died. As we drove out we saw the entire
population readying itself for the funeral. Whether it rained in Wilcannia I
cannot say for we were on our way out. I do know that it did not rain while we
were on our way to Broken Hill.
Broken Hill is about 200 kms from Wilcannia. By now I am
thinking that all bush is the same, that all horizons are a million miles away
over a flat landscape, all roads are straight and all skies are big. That is
nonsense of course but it is fair to say that the drive between Wilcannia and
Broken Hill is not the most exciting. It is livening up after about 120 kms by
the Little Topar Hotel and I had great expectations of this establishment. My
expectations were met but not in the way I had expected. The hotel is for sale
and was pretty run-down. It did not seem to be operating so after a few photos
for posterity (and this blog) we were off again.
Broken Hill announced itself by a massive set of mine
workings at the side of the road. We drove into the town which not surprisingly
has grown up right next to the mine It has a long and often tumultuous history
that dates back to 1844 when Charles Sturt saw and named the Barrier Range, and
at the time referred to a "Broken Hill" in his diary. The town itself
sprang up following the start of mining operations in 1883. Water and power
have always been a problem: average rainfall is about 10 inches a year. The
population is about 19,000 having peaked at 30,000 in the 1960s.
We found our accommodation which is in an old Baptist
church. There remain two foundation laid stones that were laid in 1911 “to the glory
of God” by the Rev S Rollings and one C E Moore Esq (no relation so far as I
know). Now 100 years later it is a holiday home. It has been beautifully
refurbished even to the point that the towels and sheets are embroidered with
“Outback Church Stay”. We were shown round by Billy, the man next door, who has
probably lived in Broken Hill all is life and is presumably now retired. We
decided to take a light repast at home and we were ready for bed at some early
hour. The bed is remarkably confortable and I slept, as I think the French
would say, comme une souche.
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