Broken Hill is a mining town with the cultural depth of somewhere much larger. The central streets are lined with heritage buildings from the boom decades, the old mine workings dominate the southern skyline, and a string of galleries reflects the long fascination of Australian artists with the harsh light and red earth of the western desert.
The town also has more memorials than most places its size — to dead miners, to a Titanic bandsman, to two cameleers who shot up a picnic train in 1915. The Royal Flying Doctor Service base at the airport runs visitor tours, and the Living Desert Sculpture Symposium, a hilltop of carved sandstone blocks nine kilometres north of town, is worth the drive at sunset.