I trained to Broken Hill on 16 July (13 hours), arriving at 7pm in the evening, met by the parish priest of Broken Hill, Fr. Paul Clark. Thank you Fr Paul for your generous and congenial hospitality!!!

While Broken Hill is in NSW, the nearest capital city is Adelaide. The NSW border with South Australia is only a short distance from BH, which shares the same time zone with South Australia, half an hour behind Sydney.

Broken Hill (town and region) is famous for its lead, zinc and silver mines. Geologically the rocks are quite old (1.7 bn years I believe). Quite a difference in age compared to the more recent surface rocks of the Sydney Basin. While the geological history is fascinating, so is the story of the town grown up around mining. Both aspects are long stories ...

The images give some sense of the fascinating, arid desert landscape of Western NSW. July occurs in winter in the southern hemisphere. The daylight for exploration was brief, and the wind cold ... but no flies, no scorching heat.

The stay in Broken Hill was far too short since I had to return to Sydney on 20 July. So much to see and begin to understand. Three days are a good introduction. Next time, two weeks (God willing.)