Things to do in Broken Hill

The next day Jane woke me from my slumber at 6-20am even though we’d agreed we didn’t need to get up until 7. She said she’d had a really bad nights sleep mithering about us not getting on the right tour and running the conversation she’d now be having with Thomas, over and over in her head. Apparently, I’d left the outcome rather too open ended 🤣

Whilst I had a quick shower it was Jane’s turn to march off down the train to see your man. Upon her return she could report that in fact all was well and by chance, two people had cancelled off our first choice tour, so now we were back in again. Nice one Thomas.

So you might wonder what was this incredible tour that we were so keen to join. Well, when in Broken Hill the only tour worth doing is the ‘Shelita, Queen of the Outback Tour’ based on the iconic film from 1994 ‘Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ which we’d watch just before we left for Oz.

It’s a rather sad film and this was the reason we were now doing a tour of a back of beyond town with our fabulous drag queen, Shelita. The surprising thing to me were the other 38 people on this tour whose average age was about 78. I’m not sure some of them knew what they’d signed up for but maybe we’re just dragged in by the word ‘Bingo’.

It was already incredibly hot and so we were all glad to take our tour at a very leisurely pace on foot round the quaint old town. Shelita couldn’t got too fast herself due to the outrageously high heeled shoes, of course. As we ambled along we were shown various landmarks from both the film and mining history of the town.

Next we all got on board our Disco Bus and we drove upto the Lode Line viewpoint and memorial. As we drove along we were accompanied by a selection of jolly ABBA tunes. The viewpoint was on top of the old slag heaps which loom over the entire town.

Up here, Jane and I had a nice chat with Shelita as well as photos. She gave us all the gossip on her meetings with Miriam Margolyes and Griff Rhys Jones who included Shelita in their TV programmes about Oz. But that’s between us and Shelita!

Back on the bus once more and we made our way to a Brewery where we all piled out once more and were encouraged to dress up in their glittery hats and feather boas etc! We had been right at the back in the bus so this meant that we were left to sit on the front table which everyone else had been avoiding like the plague. Tasty snacks were served and beers were cracked open. It must have been about 11-30am by now.

In between, Shelita made several fabulous outfit changes before we had a couple more games. One of which involved guessing the celebrity name from clues. Scooby Doo was indeed the answer! Jane won a lovely Indian Pacific fridge magnet and tote bag. Hurrah!

The morning progressed with Shelita doing some excellent lip syncing to Pet Shops Boys and Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ etc before we settled down to the serious business of Drag Queen Bingo. This is just like normal bingo except…..no, no just like normal bingo!

The finale was when Shelita said she needed a couple of backing singers and naturally, she chose me and Jane. Now this sort of audience participation is not normally my kind of thing…..but up we got and we’re then joined by a few others including the oldest man on the train who was celebrating his birthday. The music started and Shelita checked in with Jane that we knew the song. There was no mistaking the iconic introduction to YMCA by the Village People and of course we know all the actions, even if I wasn’t 100% sure which way round my C should be. Everyone else was singing along and having a whale of a time and something about the outfit I was wearing made me feel very much like a Village Person! Meanwhile, Jane seemed to forget all about her bad back and it was all joyous fun.

After a few last photos it was time to get back in the Disco Bus which took us back to the train. What a fabulous morning with the really rather lovely Shelita.

Back on the train, people on the other tours tried to convince us that they’d had a very nice time too down the silver mine and in the railway museum 🥱🥱

We were quite exhausted by our morning so Jane lay down and had a nap and I spent the whole afternoon staring out of the cabin window spotting kangaroos. Once again there were many about lurking in the shadows of the trees. Hold on a minute, did that one have a feather boa on?