Sturt boat sculpture

We had an excellent night last night, we decided to give the Family Hotel a try (There are two pubs to choose from in Tibooburra). The food was really good, the beer cold and we had a good natter with the staff afterwards. A really enjoyable night all in all.
This morning we visited the Sturt boat artwork. Sturt was one of a number of Victorian gents who, being of their time, were convinced that Australia must contain an inland sea. He assembled an expedition and equipment, including a whaling boat and a cart to carry it on and headed north from Adelaide to find this large inland sea. I’m not sure myself if it’s to his credit that he persisted in the venture as rise after rise, sand dune crest after sand dune crest, revealed yet more arid landscape. Either he was a strong character who was so adamant that the “inland sea” theory was correct or an idiot who didn’t know when to give up. Anyway, to commemorate his expedition an artist has created an exact replica of the boat and put it on some poles. The boat itself was abandoned when Sturt finally saw sense and headed south, never having actually sailed it on the inland sea. Sturt did document his travels though and opened up new areas of the outback as a result. His recommendations and observations of the terrain and fauna allowed others to follow in his footsteps.

Packsaddle Roadhouse on the Silver City Highway

This area seems to be scattered with sites and memorials to the ill conceived expedition and our north to south journey has taken in evidence and locations for three celebrated expeditions. The Sturt  expedition, the McDonnell Stuart expedition and the Burke and Wills expedition. (Burke and Wills infamously died trying to make the south to north crossing having missed their rescue party by 8 hours).
From Tibooburra we headed south along the Silver City Highway to Milparinka, a partially reconstructed gold mining town that was abandoned in the 1920s. There is also a Sturt connection just down the road from the town where the Sturt cairnis located – a cairn that Sturt persuaded his men to build to keep them out of mischief while they waited out a drought period. The reconstructed buildings are an interesting relic of the time and, similar to some UK historical sites, rely heavily on volunteers to keep them open and funded.
From Milparinka we headed south again to a major landmark from the Outback Challenge competition – the Packsaddle roadhouse. During the OBC this was a regular stop for fuel for all the competitors, normally arriving late at night after a days competiton and taking the opportunity to fill up on fuel and food at the same time. We had a steak sandwich with “the lot” as that’s what we had during the competition and it still tastes good, even in the daylight 🙂
Continuing south we eventually got to Broken Hill which is as confusing a town now as it always was with road signs only being thought necessary every 3-4 major junctions. Thanks to Apple maps we found our way to the Silverton road and headed out, by this time heading into a low, setting sun, to Silverton where we are camped for the night. The camp site is only a few minutes walk from the Silverton hotel which, once again, was as frequent a stop on the OBC as we could make it during the competition and was always a popular spot to gather after the competition ended.
Mad Max II was filmed in this area and along the Silverton road and one of the movie cars used to be parked outside the hotel. It has now gone but there is a Mad Max museum that now houses the car and we’ll no doubt visit that tomorrow. For now we’re about to take a walk to the pub and have a well earned beer or maybe two.
Tomorrow we hope to do some of the tourist things in the immediate area before heading to Eldee Station to camp tomorrow night. Eldee hosted the final part of the competiton when I competed in 2005 and offers self guided 4×4 tours that I’m hoping will take in some of the amazing navigation stages we did back then.