Silverton: Ron visits this Outback icon in the Broken Hill area of New South Wales

When Chris Fraser parks his car outside his pub at Silverton drinkers might sometimes think they've had one too many or that film director Peter Weir has recreated his post-apocalyptic vision along with his key protagonist, Mad Max.

The car is Chris Fraser's party piece - a replica of the car made famous by Mel Gibson in Mad Max.

“The interceptor car was Max's car in Mad Max One and Two,” explained Chris. “As you know, he was a police officer and he wrecked a few cars so they gave him a new car at the end of Mad Max One called the Interceptor... And the rest is history.”

Today it still pulls a crowd and so does the pub set in the middle of what really does look like a film set. The locals around Broken Hill reckon this place truly qualifies for the titles of "Hollywood of the Outback" and they've got fair claim.

In the bar, the photo boards take you through the town's cinematic history from Mad Max movies to a Town Like Alice and a more recent Bryan Brown classic, Dirty Deeds.

“I was actually standing across the road when Bryan Brown pulled up in front of the hotel and it looked exactly as it looks now. But in the movie it was a two storey place with a big gable roof - it was all done by a very expensive computer program.”

There's a lot of smoke and mirrors when it comes to the movie game and a bit of trickery when tour guide Jason Cox cajoles us into sticking a funnel down the front of our pants for what they call the Silverton Test.

“You've got to put the potato on your head and when the barmaid yells go you've got to drop it into funnel three times,” said Jason. “The first person to do it three times yells ‘finished’ and they get a beer. Everybody else has got to put a bit of money into local charity.

“You'll go home with a certificate to say you've passed the test.

“About sixty thousand people have done the test so far.”

This outback town has just forty residents today but it was home to well over five thousand in the 1880s. That was when many South Australian miners struck it rich until the lode ran out.

“It was almost basically pure silver and it happened just at the right time because it encouraged the copper miners from the Copper Triangle up here.

“They walked up here with wheelbarrows. They brought all their mining tools with them and their food. They even had water barrels strapped onto their wheel barrows and they walked all the up here from two hundred miles away.”

Now it's film crews and artists like Bronwen Standley-Woodroofe who've packed up and moved over to Silverton. She's established Horizons Gallery made of galvo in the classic Broken Hill style. There’s also the galvo camel, the reclining kangaroo; the sulphur crested cockie and a pair of Kookaburras. Silverton's become a mecca for all kinds of artists and as the name of the gallery suggests, the endless horizons are the drawcard.

“Well if you just look out the front window you can see the horizons. There's a lot of space out here which is why I was attracted to the area - because it's got space and freedom and not many fences.”

Certainly no fences when explorer Captain Charles Sturt came over the rise at Mundi Mundi lookout where artists and photographers now gather at sunset. They say that if you were to stand on the edge of the world it would be here. And it was here that Sturt must have shuddered at the thought of crossing the vast Mundi Mundi Plain in search for the Inland Sea back in 1844.

“Poor bloke. He came up over the hill saw that. Wilpena Pound is about two hundred and forty kilometres away. It stretches down to the south for nearly two hundred ks or so and then up to the north for well over six seven hundred kilometres. It's just a massive flat open landscape.”

One which almost killed Sturt and his men but one which attracts hundreds of sightseers today. Mundi Mundi Lookout and the town Silverton are just some of the sites on one of Jason Cox's Broken Hill Outback Tours. Contact him on 1800 670 120.

Broken Hill Outback Tours
Silverton & Mundi Mundi Lookout
Ph 1800 670 120

More information available from:

Broken Hill Visitor Information Centre
Phone: +61 (0)8 8088 9700 or 1300 557 036
Fax: +61 (0)8 8088 5209
Email: tourist@brokenhill.nsw.gov.au
Web: www.visitbrokenhill.com.au