SUNDAY 30 JUNE     BROKEN HILL

Daughter had said that she had to go into the office to do a few end-of-financial year things, in the morning, so we had arranged that she would contact us when finished and we would go do some walking.

At 3pm, after we’d waited, and lunched, decided to do it alone, and drove to the Perilya Twin Lakes Park, where it was pleasing to find they allowed dogs on leash.

The park was lovely and the walk around its perimeter long enough for us to feel exercised.

The adjacent Perilya lead and silver mine contrasted with the green lushness of the park, which had been established by the mining company.

Drove up to the Line of Lode, as I wanted to take some photos looking over Broken Hill.

We had, on previous visits, explored the cafe and display centre, located up here, and the Miners’ Memorial, in its distinctive rusty building. The huge mining waste “hill” shows the line of where the original ore lode stretched, in the low jagged range that was the “broken hill”. The position on top makes these buildings visible from much of the town.

From the top, one looks out over the main, central part of the town, in one direction, and South Broken Hill in the other. It is very much a physically divided town. As well as the Line of Lode bisecting the town, the east-west railway runs just below the hill line.

I was hoping to be able to take a photo that showed the Pinnacles in the distance, having previously bought a Woodroffe painting showing these hills. They were more distant than I realized.

At the adjacent visitor centre, I collected some tourist material. Looked for polo shirts, but could not find any that tempted purchase.

On the way to the Line of Lode, John had “discovered” where the Bowls Club was located.

To Woolworths to shop for food, but with no idea whether I was catering for two or three, tonight, then back to Bus.

Daughter eventually appeared. She hadn’t gotten up till 3pm! She stayed to tea, of fettucine with a tomato sauce (no meat!), followed by strawberries with yoghurt and cream.

After some discussion about possible arrangements for tomorrow, it was decided that daughter should take John out to Menindee, for a look around out there, and take her dog out for the treat of a day out for it. I said I wanted to stay at camp with our dog, and do our washing. I quite looked forward to just dog and me, for the day!

We planned that, on Tuesday, John would spend the day doing handyman work around daughter’s house and garden. There were quite a few things she wanted done, and found it hard to find tradesmen she trusted – or the money to pay for same. She had arranged to be off work on Tuesday, so tomorrow I would see if I could book us an extra day here.

My wrist seemed almost better, in terms of pain. Just the occasional twinge if pressure was put on it at certain angles. But the bruised area still looked bad – pretty sure I had somehow broken a blood vessel in there.