They said "Don't Miss The Sunset!'

One of the things about the real outback is that the sunsets are supposed to be absolutely stunning. They are pretty good at home at times so I was expecting something pretty stunning. If there's a bit of cloud cover the sunsets at home can be something special... here's one I caught earlier this year.

There are quite a lot of places to catch a sunset in Broken Hill that are just spectacular. There's the Broken Earth Restaurant on top of the slag heap, then you could catch it at the Mundi Mundi Lookout just past Silverton or you could go to the Living Desert and see it while looking at the sculptures that were part of a sculpture symposium held in 1993 by artists from around the world. Hmm we were having an arty day so it seemed only fitting to make it the sculptures for sunset.

We had a few hours to to kill til then, so we went to check out another gallery that had been advertised on big signs all over town. It had a silver and mining museum and the worlds longest watercolor painting as well as a chocolate factory. Sounded like a match made in heaven to me. Well it was all a bit disappointing, the art was a bit so so, specially after looking at the Pro Hart gallery. The whole place seemed to be just a tourist trap geared at selling you junk .. I've seen a lot of the stuff here in Dubbo. The silver was made on site and there were some very nice pieces, but just so much of it! The painting was a chore to get to through all the tourist trap stuff .. then when you got there, there was a sign saying to had to go back to the counter at the front of the shop to pay for entry to see it .. I missed it, I couldn't be bothered going back to pay for it. Such a difference between this gallery and the last. At the Pro Hart one you felt like you were really welcome, and all they wanted to do was show you the amazing life of Mr Hart ... here it felt like the tourist trap it was, all they wanted was our money and if we weren't going to spend then just get lost. We bought chocolate and went back to the cottage.

At about 4pm we headed out of town. The Living Desert Reserve is about 9km out of town and when you arrive at the gate you are greeted by the most lovely lady who is full of enthusiasm and advice about the park. 'If you want to see the flowers then go this way, but if you don't want to miss the sunset then I suggest you drive straight up to the sculpture site' she said, 'you can walk up there and see the flowers and country side on the way but you might risk getting locked into the reserve as the gates close at 6:30pm no exceptions.' Eek I didn't want to spend the night there, and I really wanted to see the sunset at the sculptures. So we drove up the most winding little road I have ever seen ... to be struck by ... the View.

This is just from the car park.

That's Broken Hill, 10km away. That mound behind the town is the slag heap produced by mining and perched on top is the restaurant.

You have to walk up a little path to get to the sculptures, and the views just kept getting better.

While it was a bit red, there was a lot of green around too.

It certainly doesn't look like a desert at the moment.

Then we came to the sculptures .. wow.

They are carved out of huge chunks of sandstone that was sourced from somewhere local, then somehow transported to the top of this hill, and carved.

They really dominated the landscape.

They were huge.

But it still wasn't quite time for the sun to set.

So I started snapping pics of some of the flowers. Australian flowers amaze me, when you look at the plants they are scraggly, wiry, doing it tough and it shows .. then they flower.

And as if to show that they really are gentle and have a side that is pure beauty, the flowers are the most delicate, pretty things that can be found anywhere.

We wandered down the path a bit.

Yep we found a lot more flowers.

And we found some wildlife.

I wandered quite close to these guys without disturbing them at all, once I'd finished my pics they were still munching happily without a care. We sat and watched another couple who spotted them, the girl with a camera who then stomped up to them and practically chased them away down the hill .. that girl needs to learn some control I think.

Finally the sun was starting to set, we wandered back up to the sculptures.

It took us ages to work out what this was, now that I look at this photo it seems so obvious.

Terry found a good vantage point.

I snapped more pics.

When the setting sun hits this sandstone it just comes to life.

And with it reflecting off the town in the background it was becoming breath taking.

There is one sculpture that just demanded more photos.

And a critter that was demanding attention too.

The sun was getting very low .. and amazing.

Time to try to catch the photo I really want.

Yep that's it .. perfect.

What to do in Broken Hill

Tuesday was the first of our three day stay in Broken Hill. We had planned to spend this day exploring the town, the next two days would be for going further afield and exploring two places close by, Silverton and Menindee. So with an arm that was fast becoming redder and puffier .. not to mention the incredible itch (I've never had an allergic reaction to anything and I just cant believe how bad that itch was!) and with minimal sleep because of it, I was glad when Terry came back to the cottage that first morning with a car! First stop the local shopping center for some food staples and antihistamines.

Yet another reminder of how hot it gets out here, the whole car park was covered with these amazing sails .. what a great idea I wish they'd do something like this in our local shopping center. So after taking some tablets with breakfast and spraying the arm with a nifty sunburn spray that cooled it down nicely for a little while, we had to decide what to go look at.

We went for a bit of a drive round the town .. umm we weren't lost really. We spotted the slag heap. Yes seriously that's a major part of this town and a landmark, Broken Hill was built on mining and BHP started here. So on top of the slag heap is a cafe restaurant called Broken Earth and also a miners memorial and some museums.

That's the cafe restaurant you can see and just poking up behind it is the miners memorial. We didn't get to see any of the touristy stuff up there unfortunately cause we just kinda didn't get to it. I would have liked to because BHP was a big deal in my home town of Newcastle when I was growing up. Next time for sure.

Then we decided to go looking for something to look at. One thing that Broken Hill is famous for is the mining and silver .. the other big thing out there is the art. There are art galleries everywhere you turn with some pretty famous artists displaying a very unique brand of Australian Outback Art, but the guy who put it all on the map was Pro Hart, check out his web site here I promise you will enjoy it. It was high on my list of 'must not miss out on!' So the first place I directed my driver to was his gallery.

From the front fence his art was already on display.

I loved these sculptures hanging along the front wall.

He famously painted a Rolls Royce.

He obviously liked his Rolls Royces, there were another three sitting in the sheds in the front garden, there was also some more artwork scattered around the garden.

These were my favourite sculptures in the garden but where ever you looked there was something a little quirky and fun sitting nestled amongst the plants. We hadn't even made it in the front door and already I was fascinated and finding out things I never knew about the wonderful artist.












Then we headed inside and were greeted by a lovely lady who said it was OK for me to take photos, I still didn't use a flash though .. and we went into the first room full of lithographs and paintings that were done by his son and daughter, both have very unique styles. It was interesting but it was Pro's work that I was looking for and this is exactly what I was expecting.

Pro's style has a very naive feel full of the life of the Australian outback. But then we went up the stairs to the gallery and wow .. I love weird art.

 
I don't know the proper words for it but if it's a bit different and can tell a story then I love it.

I love paintings that show me something else each time I look at them and while I was looking at the paintings around the balconies I found so many stories.

He also did some portraits but the one that was on display didn't take my fancy .. this did .. it's called The Monday Morning Miner.

Pro painted what was around him and he was a miner.

Pro Harts miners hat and lunch box

The fascinating thing about this gallery was that it was also a bit of a museum about Pro Hart and it was interesting to find out about him.

They had his studio set up behind glass, and also one of the ways he created. He was often trying new things like dropping paint from a hot air balloon, blowing up sheet metal with black powder and making sculpture from it and shooting paint from a cannon .. there wasn't much that he didn't try actually.

He loved cars and motorbikes.

But above all the best thing was the art. At first my favourite painting was this one.

But then I found another bug .. on carpet no less.

The next one that caught my eye was this.

By now I was starting to realise that Pro Hart was so much more than I had realised. I love his figures.

But by the end of the day I think this has to be my favorite .. so far.

I love paintings of flowers, and he did a pretty good job of those too.

But the best wall was the one with a bunch of paintings together ..

Then I went into a little back room and he had painted around the wall .. a long painting that told the story of the European settlement in Australia and the effects it had.

Unfortunately my attempt at making a panoramic of three walls wasn't a complete success but you get the general idea.

Umm one more painting just cause I didn't include it and I liked it.

We'd spent a good amount of time wandering around exploring the work and the life of a truly inspirational man and we were browsing through the gift shop wanting to take something home with us when the lady who had greeted us came over to help us. What a wonderful lady, her husband had been a friend of Pro's who also liked bikes .. she admitted that it all rubbed off on her when we mentioned that we rode from Dubbo and she was interested in our bikes and our ride .. which is just a little bit different when you consider she was at least 70 years old, but it was wonderful and gave me hope that I would be able to hold onto my passions as I age. We ended up just getting a note pad with a great picture of one of the dragon flies that I love on the front, our friend mentioned that you could just tear off the front page and frame it and you would have an instant Pro Hart .. when I said that no I wouldn't do that as the note pad would be our record of our trip she understood. When I got the pad out to write in late that night I found that she had torn the cover off another pad and put it in the bag for me .. so nice.

And so the thing that we were finding in Broken Hill is that the idea that country people are so nice and will talk to anyone is right .. everywhere we had been so far we seemed to take so much longer cause we got caught up in a chat. It was great, very relaxing and very fun.