There was another movie scheduled for this year but it had to be postponed to 2012 because the area is too green. This area has had more rain than usual and the desert has lots of plants and even some of them are green. One has to look close other than the creek beds to discern the green from the silver-gray of the scrub. Silverton was established in 1881 although it didn’t get its official designation of a town until 1885. No, I don’t really know but knowing a little bit about the area I can guess. I believe the people were too busy trying to grub out a living to worry much about bureaucratic niceties. They did finally get organized and become a town. Ouch, that didn’t last long at all as the silver played out or Broken Hill got too big or something.
Right now the village (new designation) seems to be undergoing a renaissance as there seem to be more people living there and less empty houses on the way to there. There are art galleries in several of the buildings and that does and does not amaze me. Artists have forever found places to live that nobody else wanted and made those places into “the place to be.”
Actually, saying galleries in several of the places is an overstatement. There are barely enough places to be called “several” if you grouped them all together. This place was deserted except for the hardy few who braved a shortage of civilized amenities so they could live there. Somehow it caught on that this would be a good place for artistic types and some started moving here. If they really sell their work for the prices they have posted, there does not seem to be any “starving” artists here.
The day I was here there was brisk tourist traffic. It is very possible that this is now one of the places one has to visit if one is to see the outback. As it is the original site of the silver strike and was started before anything else out here, it has history going for it. Then the Mad Max movies draw visitors as I saw couples taking many photos of the cars used in the Mad Max movie(s).
But the desert is what people should come to see. I am not sure what the definition of a desert would encompass but a dry, lonely, empty place would seem to suffice for me. There is a lookout point called Muga Muga where you can stop and see for miles – or kilometers over here. I stood and tried to decide which view I could show you that ‘told’ the story of how empty this part of Australia is. Yes, I ended up taking several pictures because there was nothing in any direction. Wait, I do have to slightly amend that as there was a windmill far off to the east. If it was there to water sheep or cattle it didn’t have any customers. No animal of any kind was spotted until just before getting into Silverton.
The wind wasn’t kind on Muga Muga point either. It almost literally blew me off as it was powerful enough to rock my pickup truck as it was sitting still.
An interesting thing occurred. Two cars pulled in and three men and one young lady got out and started deciding something. Then one man took a small power mower and walked a few feet into the grayish grass and stood behind the mower. A photog started posing him and snapping pictures. I asked the young lady what was happening as I thought it would be an advertisement shoot for a local business.
Not quite. The mower was the mayor of Broken Hill and I never really understood why he would come 15 K out of town to shoot a fake picture of him not mowing to put in the newspaper. The closest I could come to what the lady said was the picture would show the difference between out there and in town. I left at that as I didn’t want to bother them but I could have offered some technical advice.
A man just standing there with his hands on the handle looks fake. There are ways to make it look real but, being a visiting Yank, what do I know.
This flock of birds was feeding along the road so I stopped and got some shots. They are very pretty and I think they are galahs – pronounced gall-uhs.
If I find out different I’ll post a correction. But being a lifelong Okie I found it totally amazing that an entire flock of exotic birds would be flying around just so I could take their picture. I know, they are not exotic to the people around here.But they were to me. I loved it.
No comments:
Post a Comment