Day 127 – Peterborough to Broken Hill


It’s another hot morning, although today there is very little cloud cover, so it will seem hotter still.

We packup and drive down to Steamtown for the tour, it’s pretty clear we’re going to have the tour to ourselves. Given we are early we do some of the free exploring of the train shed that you would normally do at the end of the tour.

Not long after Phil our guide comes along. A nice old bloke. It does take a little while to understand exactly what he is saying all the time. The tour is slow and a bit meandering, but overall it was good. They have some wonderful locomotives and carriages, and in spite of ourselves we actually learn something.

As we’re about to exit, the visitors centre guide tells us we have some friends outside. The Canberra Family pulled in while we were on the tour. They’re outside as the Indian Pacific is due to pass any moment. I thought it should have already passed, but apparently it’s running late. We stand in the baking sun cameras ready for what ends up being over 30mins. No Indian Pacific for us today it seems.

We’ve got about 300km to get to Broken Hill and other than 2 or 3 very small towns (well points on a map) there will be not much else. It’s hot.

The landscape out here, just looks dry. I don’t think it is the heat of today. It just looks cooked without being an actual desert. There are willy-willys all over the place, that may be due to the heat.

We stop at the border, NSW you should be ashamed of yourself! You call that a border sign? The NT did a better job on some outback dirt road. We stop for a shot anyway. The car is reporting 47°, a few kms later we see 48° briefly.

Into the van park, there’s not much in the way of shade, but they have a pool.

Justine and I discuss dinner, it’s hot, a pub dinner is the go. We end up at the Palace Hotel, it not till we’re inside that we remember this is the one from Pricilla. The food is good, service is slooooooow, they also stuffed up Justine’s meal, but we got a free round of drinks, plus they ended up not charging for that meal either. Ah well with it still 45 outside, we can use the excuse to stay indoors.

One Reply to “Day 127 – Peterborough to Broken Hill”

  1. Last time I was approaching Peterborough I was at some elevation and I spotted from my vista what must have been half a dozen willy willys all spiralling around at the same time like the dust devils they are

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