![\"Birdsville](\"https:\/\/s1.at.atcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/GettyImages-856835460.jpg\")
Birdsville track through Sturts Stony Desert<\/p><\/div>\n
Most authoritative travel advice, including guidebooks such as Lonely Planet, frowns on outback-bound summer travel.<\/p>\n
You’ll hear the warnings<\/h2>\n
In his book In a Sunburned Country, American author Bill Bryson goes one step further, likening the outback to our deadliest predators: \u201cYou may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
My last line of defence, the South Australian town of Burra\u2019s tourist information office, sings the same tune. The amicable woman is flummoxed at the idea of driving a further 350 kilometres into nothingness.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cYou know it\u2019s going to be near 50 degrees out there?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019m sticking to the main road,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n
Not many others have ventured this far<\/h2>\n
She tilts her head and arches her eyebrows. She\u00a0thinks I\u2019m unhinged. Well, maybe. But I am also in the majority of Australians who hasn\u2019t even been close to an area of the country that is said in many ways to define it. This is, I s\u2019pose, why I am ignoring the venomous heat and well-wishing naysayers.<\/p>\n\n
She sends me on my way with a pointed warning about not pulling off the road because my car\u2019s engine heat could spark a massive scrub fire, \u201clike the other day\u201d.<\/p>\n\n
The flowing wheat fields hastily surrender into a\u00a0semi-arid expanse: grey saltbush, hardy grass, low khaki scrub, red dirt. A\u00a0quicksilver heat haze swallows both sides of the horizon, like I\u2019ve misnavigated onto an uncharted Belgium-sized inland lake.<\/p>\n
Watch out for the wildlife<\/h2>\n
The traffic dries to a trickle; big rigs mostly. A\u00a0lone emu plays a high-speed game of chicken with me, before dramatically exiting stage left, leaving me staring in blinking wonder. Most wildlife is either asleep in the shade or pre-flattened on the highway. There is, however, an abundance of feral goats snacking on thorny bushes. Tough udders indeed.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/s1.at.atcdn.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/GettyImages-952772122.jpg\")
Wild Red kangaroo hopping across gravel road in the outback of South Australia<\/p><\/div>\n
Enter, Silver City<\/h2>\n
I reach Silver City mid-afternoon and cruise down the main drag. It is deserted. The \u2019Hill is in lockdown, an enforced summer siesta. Travelling ridiculously out of season comes with its benefits: accommodation is noticeably empty and prices reasonable. I have my pick of the rooms at the Palace Hotel (the Priscilla pub with the kitschy murals).<\/p>\n
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An Indigenous artist from Port Augusta by the name of Gordon Waye painted the landscape murals at The Palace Hotel<\/p><\/div>\n
Taking my cue from the locals, like a desert lizard I wait out the remainder of the afternoon on the hotel\u2019s broad verandah, each beer staying cool for all of three minutes. The latent heat hovers heavily as the sun sets.\u00a0I drive up to the top of the all-surveying silver skimp dump, essentially a mound of mining waste that imposes itself over the \u2019Hill, a superb spot to gain some perspective over this settlement of many personalities.<\/p>\n
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The Palace Hotel Broken Hill was used as a stop-over for the characters in the 1994 Australian iconic movie, Priscilla Queen of the Desert.<\/p><\/div>\n
A small group emerges from their air-conned hibernation, gathering around me to sunset worship. An older couple sparks up conversation, as though we\u2019ve met before. They are happy I\u2019ve made the effort to come all this way and seem relieved I actually made it in one piece.<\/p>\n\n
We gawp at a trillion stars slowly replacing the day\u2019s last sunlight. Behind us, some distance away, a blinking Royal Flying Doctor Service plane lands at its base. Yep, I\u2019m in the outback now.<\/p>\n
Keep cool, however you can<\/h2>\n
The couple insists I go for a swim in their pool tomorrow. They also list other places to keep cool and give me their phone number \u2013 \u201cjust in case\u201d.\u00a0 Does high-season hospitality stretch this far?<\/p>\n\n
Over the next few days, as the furnace maintains its rage, I visit the area\u2019s must-dos at a\u00a0distinctly off-season pace. A cool(er) evening is\u00a0spent at the stunning Living\u00a0Desert Reserve, ogling the majestic rock sculptures against a\u00a0backdrop that defines infinity. I stroll around Pro Hart\u2019s (exquisitely air-conditioned) gallery, all\u00a0by myself. I negotiate the \u201839 dips\u2019 along the road to\u00a0Silverton; Priscilla and Mad Max territory.<\/p>\n
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