After following the Murray and spending our first few stops settling into life on the road, Broken Hill felt like the point where our lap really started heading into the outback.
The landscape changed, the distances opened up and we started seeing the mining and railway history that has shaped this part of Australia.
We spent plenty of time exploring while we were there — although one of our first Broken Hill memories involved Chad discovering that flying foxes can bite back.
Starting With a Bang
Travelling Australia with kids means not every memorable moment is going to be something you planned.
We’d found a park where the kids could burn off some energy, and Chad was having a great time on the flying fox.
Right up until he wasn’t.
He came off it and hit the ground hard enough to give us all a decent scare.
Thankfully he was alright, but it certainly gave us a memorable start to Broken Hill.
Once we’d established that Chad was still in one piece, we got back to exploring.
A City Built on Mining
You don’t have to spend long in Broken Hill before you realise how much of the city revolves around its mining history.
We stopped at the Kintore Headframe, one of those enormous pieces of mining infrastructure that gives you some perspective on the scale of the industry here.
We also headed up to the Line of Lode, sitting high above Broken Hill on the old mine site.
From up there you get a completely different view of the city and the surrounding country.
The Line of Lode Miners Memorial was also an important stop. It commemorates the miners who lost their lives working the Broken Hill mines and is a reminder that the history behind the city came at a huge human cost.
We spent some time looking around before stopping at the café.
Sulphide Street Railway & Historical Museum
One of the places the kids really enjoyed was the Sulphide Street Railway & Historical Museum.
There’s a lot more here than we expected.
The museum preserves a big part of Broken Hill’s railway history, with old locomotives, carriages and plenty of other historical displays to explore.
Rather than simply walking around looking at things behind glass, the kids could get up close to a lot of the railway equipment, which made it much more interesting for them.
And, of course, there was the bell.
At 3pm, the kids got the chance to ring it.
It’s probably not the part of Broken Hill’s railway history most people would write home about, but when you’re travelling with kids, sometimes ringing an old bell ends up being one of the things they remember most.
The Picnic Train Attack
Another stop that surprised us was the Picnic Train Historical Site.
In 1915, a train carrying passengers heading out for a New Year’s Day picnic was attacked near Broken Hill.
We visited the site associated with the attackers’ final stand.
It’s one of those pieces of Australian history we’d heard very little about before arriving.
Standing there and reading what happened made the story feel very different from simply seeing it mentioned in a history book.
That’s become one of the things we really enjoy about travelling with the kids.
Roadschool isn’t always sitting inside the caravan working through lessons. Sometimes history is standing right in front of you.
Looking Out Over Broken Hill
We also stopped at J P Keenan Lookout, another good spot to get above the city and see how Broken Hill sits within the surrounding landscape.
From street level, Broken Hill feels like a reasonably substantial regional city.
Get up high and suddenly you realise just how quickly the city ends and the outback begins.
There’s something about seeing those massive stretches of country disappearing towards the horizon that makes you want to keep driving and find out what’s out there.
Which was handy, because that’s exactly what we were doing.
More Than We Expected
Before arriving, Broken Hill was somewhere we obviously knew about.
Mining town. Outback NSW. Silverton nearby.
But actually spending time there gave us a much better appreciation for the place.
There’s a huge amount of Australian history packed into the city, and we could have easily found more things to see if we’d stayed longer.
It was also a good reminder that travelling with the kids changes the way we explore places.
We can visit a mining memorial, climb through old railway equipment, learn about an attack from more than a century ago and somehow still have the day’s biggest talking point be Chad launching himself off a flying fox.
That’s family travel.
Next Stop – Silverton
From Broken Hill, we weren’t heading far.
Just down the road was a tiny outback town we’d been looking forward to seeing — Silverton.
We’d spend two nights there, have dinner and a beer at the Silverton Hotel, head underground at the Daydream Mine, visit the Mad Max 2 Museum and explore some of the town’s history.
And somewhere beyond Silverton was the Mundi Mundi Plain, stretching seemingly forever towards the horizon.
Our lap was starting to feel a long way from home.
— All 4 Good Wins
