The school holidays are sadly over.  We enjoyed plenty of holiday moments but farm commitments and catering for extra workers left little room for flexibility or down time.  This is part of farming and as we all know, life must go on.  But, I really felt the need to have at least one outing before the routine of school returned to our house.

On the final Saturday of the holidays we combined an essential trip to the shops with a touristy afternoon in our own town. After dealing with the necessary groceries and errands we visited a garage sale.  Not much to see so we hit the road to the historic township of Silverton.

We started off with a simple but tasty lunch at the Silverton Hotel, made famous for appearing in many movies but perhaps most famously Mad Max II.

The hotel is very much a tourist attraction but still manages to maintain the feel of a genuine outback pub.  The beer garden is roomy and an ideal place for the whole family to enjoy a cold drink and meal.

A walk was in order after lunch and we wandered along the dusty roads of the town taking in the quirky galleries, shops, cafes and the beautiful old buildings.  Tiny stone churches sit proudly on the windswept, rocky hill and they continue to intrigue me.

 

Ice cream was on the agenda before our day ended and in Broken Hill there is no better place to go than Bells Milk Bar.  Bells is an intact 1950s milk bar complete with sundaes, ice-creams, spiders and milkshakes.  There is also a fascinating milk bar museum full of early ice-cream related paraphernalia.  On this day we left the museum for the out of town tourists and instead concentrated on our cold treats.

 

Our outing was fun, low key, low cost and a much needed breath of fresh air.

Are you ever a tourist in your own town…complete with camera?