Chapter 2. Broken Hill, Menindee & White Cliffs

 Menindee

It is the oldest European settlement in western New South Wales, and the first town to be established on the Darling River. The first European to visit the area was the surveyor and explorer Major Thomas Mitchell in 1835. He was followed by Charles Sturt in 1844 and the town was the advance base for the Burke and Wills expedition in 1860.

Burke and Wills

Main article: Burke and Wills expedition

The Burke and Wills expedition camped at Menindee on their journey to cross Australia from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. They arrived here on 14 October 1860, crossed the Darling River at Kinchega Station and made Camp XXXIV (their thirty-fourth camp since leaving Melbourne). There was dissent within the party and the deputy-leader George Landells resigned. Robert O'Hara Burke split the party, heading north to Cooper Creek with half the men, stores and animals. The remaining men, stores and animals made a depot camp at Pamamaroo Creek and a sign and cairn mark the site of the camp. This camp was used for the remainder of 1860 and for most of 1861. While in Menindee, Burke stayed at the Maiden's Hotel, which was then owned by Thomas Pain and was known as Pain's Hotel.

Menindee is located where the transcontinental railway line crosses the Darling River. The town is serviced by the NSW TrainLink 'Outback Xplorer' passenger train from Sydney to Broken Hill on Monday, returning from Broken Hill to Sydney on Tuesday. The GSR Indian Pacific also stops once-weekly [twice-weekly in September and October] in each direction on request. The railway line is about 900 km west of Sydney and about 110 kilometres south-east of Broken Hill.
A weir on the Darling River near Menindee diverts water from the river into a series of shallow, otherwise dry, overflow lakes. The Menindee Lakes, also known as the Menindee Water Storage Scheme, regulate the river flow for irrigation downstream into South Australia. Situated on the western edge of town is the Kinchega National Park.

Climate

Menindee has a desert climate with an annual average rainfall of just 245.8 mm (9.6 in), however rainfall varies significantly from year to year, with the town often going without rainfall for months on end, but occasional severe rainstorms can cause falls of over 100 mm in a day, the last time this happened was January 2011. Menindee is tied with Bourke in recording the hottest temperature in New South Wales, with a temperature of 49.7 °C (121.5 °F) recorded on the 10 January 1939.

Broken Hill

Broken Hill is Australia's longest-lived mining city. In 1844, the explorer Charles Sturt saw and named the Barrier Range, and at the time referred to a "Broken Hill" in his diary.^[3] Silver ore was later discovered on this broken hill in 1883 by a boundary rider named Charles Rasp. The "broken hill" that gave its name to Broken Hill actually comprised a number of hills that appeared to have a break in them. The broken hill no longer exists, having been mined away.
The area was originally known as Willyama.^[4]
Before Charles Sturt's naming of the town, the surrounding area was referred to by the local Aboriginal population as the "Leaping Crest".

White Cliffs, New South Wales

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

White Cliffs

White Cliffs is a small town in outback New South Wales in Australia, in Central Darling Shire. White Cliffs is around 255 km northeast of Broken Hill, 93 km north of Wilcannia. At the 2011 census, White Cliffs had a population of 103.^[1]
The primary school opened in 1895, and has operated continuously since then. White Cliffs was one of the many places visited by Bill Bryson in research for the book In a Sunburned Country.
The town was established in the late 19th century when opal was discovered. Opal has been mined ever since. The first Australian opal was found 20 years before in Queensland in 1872, when a party of kangaroo hunters were operating in the White Cliffs area. One of them, who had left the party to track down a wounded kangaroo over some low stony hills, picked up a pretty stone which appealed to him. When taking back the stone, they suspected it could be opal which the local jeweler confirmed. He advised to get as much opal as possible since this could be more profitable than kangaroo hunting. When the group filed a claim, opal had not yet been listed under gemstones, and it was decided to file the claim under the "Gold Mining Act".^[2]
Many of the residents live underground, using mining equipment to dig extensive homes in the hillside to avoid the intense heat outside. There are also two underground motels called The White Cliffs Underground and PJ's Bed And Breakfast, as the town is becoming more dependent on tourism.
Cricketer Bill O'Reilly was born in White Cliffs, the son of the first school teacher

http://undergroundmotel.com.au/
 

About Bill Bryson

 

William McGuire “Bill” Bryson, OBE, FRS (born December 8, 1951), is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and science. Born in America, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before returning to the U.S. in 1995. In 2003 Bryson moved back to Britain, living in the old rectory of Wramplingham, Norfolk, and was appointed chancellor of Durham University.
Bryson shot to prominence in the United Kingdom with the publication of Notes from a Small Island (1995), an exploration of Britain, and its accompanying television series. He received widespread recognition again with the publication of A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003).

Early life

Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of William and Agnes Mary (née McGuire). His mother was of Irish descent.^[1] He has an older brother, Michael and a sister, Mary Jane Elizabeth – in 2006 Bryson published The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a humorous account of his childhood years in Des Moines.
Bryson attended Drake University for two years before dropping out in 1972, deciding to instead backpack around Europe for four months. He returned to Europe the following year with a high-school friend, the pseudonymous Stephen Katz. Some of his experiences from this trip were relived as flashbacks in Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, which documents a similar journey Bryson made 20 years later.

Move to Britain

Bryson first visited Britain in 1973 during a tour of Europe and decided to stay after landing a job working in a psychiatric hospital—the now defunct Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Water, Surrey. He met a nurse there named Cynthia Billen, whom he married and they moved to the United States in 1975 so that Bryson could complete his college degree. In 1977 they settled in Britain, where they remained until 1995. Eventually living in North Yorkshire and mainly working as a journalist, Bryson became chief copy editor of the business section of The Times and then deputy national news editor of the business section of The Independent. He left journalism in 1987, three years after the birth of his third child. Living in Kirkby Malham, North Yorkshire, Bryson started writing independently and in 1990 their fourth child, Samuel, was born.
Although able to apply for British citizenship, Bryson has declined a citizenship test, declaring himself “too cowardly” to take it.^[2]

Writings

In 1995 Bryson returned to the United States to live in Hanover, New Hampshire, for some years. While there he wrote a column for a British newspaper for several years, reflecting on humorous aspects of his repatriation in America. These columns were selected and adapted to become his book I’m a Stranger Here Myself, alternatively titled Notes from a Big Country in Britain, Canada, and Australia. During his time in the United States, Bryson decided to walk the Appalachian Trail with his friend Stephen Katz (a pseudonym), about which he wrote the book A Walk in the Woods. In 2003 the Brysons and their four children returned to Britain and now live in Norfolk.
Also in 2003, in conjunction with World Book Day, British voters chose Bryson’s book Notes from a Small Island as that which best sums up British identity and the state of the nation.^[3] In the same year, he was appointed a Commissioner for English Heritage.
In 2004 Bryson won the prestigious Aventis Prize for best general science book with A Short History of Nearly Everything.^[4] This 500-page popular literature piece explores not only the histories and current statuses of the sciences, but also reveals their humble and often humorous beginnings. Although one “top scientist” is alleged to have jokingly described the book as “annoyingly free of mistakes,” ^[5] Bryson himself makes no such claim and a list of some reported errors in the book is available online.^[6] In 2005, the book won the EU Descartes Prize for science communication.^[4]
Bryson has also written two popular works on the history of the English language—Mother Tongue and Made in America—and, more recently, an update of his guide to usage, Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words (published in its first edition as The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words in 1983).
Source Wikipedia