Today’s Challenge is to post a Video.  Any Video.  I have chosen to use a Video that I recorded – and I shall tell the story about it.

When I did my round Australia solo trip, I travelled through Broken Hill (which is almost in the centre of Australia), and travelled to a historic town outside of Broken Hill called Silverton.  It is only 23 kms and though I had travelled through Broken Hill on several occasions previously, I’d never been to Silverton.

It is such a fascinating place – of course full of history, with a number of old buildings still in use. It was December 12, 2012, that I was there and I wrote about it in my other blog here.

As it was summer, and the centre of Australia is incredibly hot, not many people travel through this area, and so it was that I was the only person staying overnight in the caravan park.  That is where I met Jack. the Corella.  Jack performs for all the guests, and he danced and talked to me before going down into the centre of an old tree trunk in his cage.  I took the video, a bit of a challenge to do it, but was happy with the result.

Silverton Mine

The old Silverton mine was a busy place in 1882, where young miners were employed to work in the underground mines.  They were very young men, mostly from Wales, and many became blind from working underground with the metals.  A sad story indeed.

I did go underground in the mine – and it was so challenging it nearly killed me.  I used muscles I hadn’t used before and for about four days I found it hard to walk.

But survive I did.  I may visit Broken Hill in August/September this year.  I might just visit Jack and see what he is up to.  I will never go down a mine again.  It was so painful.

Silverton is well worth a visit.

Silverton Hotel and wide dirt roads of Silverton