Broken Hill

Fast facts

• Quirky Outback mining town favoured by artists and surrounded by national parks
• 1,117 km west of Sydney
  

Why go there

At first sight, Broken Hill seems conservative, even sedate. It’s main thoroughfare - Argent Street - bristles with colonial mansions, heritage homes, pubs and public buildings. But look deeper and you can see its quirky nature everywhere.

There’s the Palace Hotel, built in 1888, and made famous in the movie Priscilla Queen of the Desert. It has a mural of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus on the ceiling and stuffed crabs, lobsters and eagles in reception. Then there’s the radio station, built to resemble a wireless set. And, on the outskirts of town there’s a giant ant – a tribute to the mining community.

Broken Hill – or ‘Silver City’ as it has been nicknamed – is still making money from what was once the world’s largest deposit of silver, lead and zinc.

While mining has decreased over the years, art has flourished. With the largest regional public art gallery in NSW and more than 20 private galleries, Broken Hill has more places per capita to see art than anywhere else in Australia.

Artists - and Outback characters - are drawn to the surrounding scenery. They say it’s like a huge canvas painted in a restricted palette of colours, with blood red for the dirt, straw-yellow for the Mitchell grass, and a searing blue for the enormous sky.

Don’t miss

• Rolling into town on the luxurious Indian Pacific from Sydney, one of the great train journeys of the world
• Taking a tour at the Royal Flying Doctor Service or listening in to the School of the Air
• The huge St Patrick's Race Day, when thousands of visitors turn up to watch horses galloping around a dirt track and the associated fashion parades