Out & About Around the Outback

The plans for Sunday were pretty extensive. We were going to drive out to Menindee Lake and explore the river and wildlife that they had there. However, when we all woke up it was raining, windy and cold. The river had actually rose past the shore and up onto many lawns, making our River Cruise impossible. (What's that saying in the events industry? Whatever can go wrong, will.) We made adjustments and found things to do with our time however.

We still made it out to Menindee and saw some portions of the lake. John (our bus driver) took us out to the "Sunset Strip" which is a pretty ironic place. Compared to the Strip in Vegas or Los Angeles, this strip is..different. There were about 60 houses (some falling apart, some in better condition) lining a single street. There were trees, bush and a long dirt road connecting them all together. Behind one side of the block was Lake Menindee. It was a pretty cool sight because there were trees fully intacted just sticking up out of the water, but I'd imagine it would have been much better and sunrise or sunset.

We then ventured off to Copi Hollow, which is a riverbank town. When we arrived, some of the guys were joking about how it should be called "Creepy Hollow" due to the 15 people that seemed to live there and how desolate it all was. Everyone was asking where the headless horseman lives, quite funny. There were people swimming in the river, which I thought was crazy because it was so incredibly cold out!


Finally we made it into the town of Menindee, where we ate lunch at the Albemarie Restaurant. It was pretty quaint, kind of like everything else in the outback. Afterwards, we drove back into Broken Hill and explored some local museums. We went into the Geo Center, which had information on the process of mining and what kind of rocks were surrounding Broken Hill. It was really cool to see what the town was built on and get a better understanding of their main profit.

Then we approached what was one of my favorite activities in the trip. We went to see John's friend, Kevin "Bushy" White. He built a mine museum off the side of his house. It contains scaled models of the mines and the processes they use. He used to mine himself, and he told us all about mining and the improvements that have been made throughout the years. He also uses crushed minerals (from the mine) to make artwork. It's amazing stuff, you can literally scratch at it without damaging a thing.

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this being a college student, but my Sunday night was rather lame. We all were on our own for dinner, so I ordered a Domino's pizza and fell asleep at 8:00 watching tv. Made me feel like I was back home for awhile! Everyone else went out and had a good time, but I was sound asleep in my Broken Hill bed, waiting for the next day's adventures.