Leaving Echuca we headed straight west through the interesting Victorian towns of Boort, with it’s delightful sculptures by the ‘Spannerman’, Wycheproof, that claims the world’s smallest mountain, through a town called “Speed” and on to Brim to see the brilliant silo artworks. After spending the night at Brim we headed north towards Mildura, staying overnight at Merbein on the River Murray, before getting an early start for a long days drive northward back into NSW and Broken Hill.

We had decided to stay at Silverton, around 20kms from Broken Hill, and found the small town an interesting place to explore with the Mad Max 2 museum being a highlight. The Mundi Mundi lookout not only gave us a fantastic sunset but was also the crest of road where the Mad Max truck crash was filmed. The friendly local donkeys who waited for the local store to open hoping for a morsel gave us a chuckle and we spent some time browsing the local Street art gallery and Silverton Museum.

We started our tour of Broken Hill at the Miners’ Memorial lookout where there is a moving memorial to the 800 miners who lost their lives working the ‘Line of Lode’ and also good views over the town. We popped in to the Palace Hotel where Priscilla Queen of the Desert was filmed and visited two outstanding art galleries, Pro Hart and Absalom’s Galleries before taking a break at the wonderful Bells Milk Bar with it’s charming 1950’s decor and museum. We had just watched the new Aussie movie “Last Cab to Darwin” and managed to find ‘Rex’s house’. Before heading back to Silverton we stopped to see the stunning Big Picture, the world’s largest acrylic painting on canvas by a single artist and view the Living Desert Sculptures created by 12 artists from five countries.

We set off eastward from Broken Hill we stopped at Cobar, another outback copper mining town that now has a new open cut gold mine. We spent a great few days at the free camp near town at the ‘Newie’ billabong, before heading for Dubbo.