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Well, I made it to Broken Hill and checked into The Palace Hotel more by accident than plan. My $45 room was pokey but had a sink, a fridge, a glass tube TV and a noisy AC. What more could one want for the price? But the hotel was simply fab. It has what is regarded as the best pub veranda in NSW - the widest in the Southern Hemisphere with views onto the main street and up to the huge mullock heap that forms a backdrop to this iconic mining town. Under a whim of it's former Italian owner, The Palace had become a kind of "Italian Renaissance meets Outback". Murals covered virtually every wall of the foyer, ball room, restaurant and hallways. Several scenes from the film Priscilla - Queen of the Desert were shot in this grand outback hotel. The next day I was riding through the vast flat red desert of the Mundi Mundi plains west of Silverton. My scooter had never had a name though I knew she was a girl. Then it struck me, of course, "Priscilla!" - Queen of the Desert. So logical, so right. Don't know why it took me about 50 years and a 2,600 kilometre ride to think of a name for her.

Introducing Priscilla.... (as if you don't know her already)