Mad Max and a Mad? Yorkshireman.

There are few places on earth that one can see an unbroken horizon, other than at sea. Some thirty Kms from Broken hill, Mundi Mundi is one of them, and from the top of a small rise we could see for many miles.
This is Mad Max 2 country, the film was made here and a very large set was constructed in the centre of this picture, alas now removed. And that's not the only film that was made here, a lot of other 'apocalyptic' type films have been shot on these plains too.
Nearby is Silverton, a silver mining town from the 1800s, now almost extinct.

There is, however, a "Mad Max" museum, with memorabilia of all three of the films, but mainly of the second. It is run by an expat Yorkshireman, Adrian Bennett, who came here some years ago on holiday specifically to see where it was filmed, then returned with his wife and family soon after to open this museum.
He has many items that were used in the film, and has made others as replicas, in particular the cars and buggies. We spent an hour or so talking to him and viewing his collection, he is quite a character!

Among the few remaining buildings in the town is the Silverton Hotel, which, over the years, has had many guises in film sets. Not the least of them was the mini series, " A Town Like Alice", the hotel was used as one in Alice at the end of the series where the hero met the heroine before living happily ever after on a sheep station. Race the Sun and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert were just two of the others made locally, as well as Reckless Kelly.
In front of the hotel is a VW Beetle, heavily modified, supposedly the 'Love Child' of the Mad Max Interceptor!



Earlier we had visited the Mother Lode cafe and memorial to the 800 or so miners who have been killed in the mines here since they started mining silver, lead and zinc here in the mid 1800s. Each has been named, with their age and date of death, and many show how they died. The youngest we saw was only 12, from dynamite fumes, in those days life was very cheap. Many of the older guys died from hear attacks at work, was there something in the mines? Nowadays Health And safety is priority, and in the last fifteen years or so just 5 deaths are reported.






I was concerned however at where it was built, on the edge of what we would call a hundred foot high slag heap, with very steep sides. It put me in mind of Aberffan, from the sixties, and I had a touch of the jitters on the top. I am sure  that present regulations would ensure the safety of the site, I just hope they don't have earthquakes here!