For South Coast NSW resident Rhoda Pooley, a recent trip to Broken Hill was much more than another holiday. It was the chance to finally visit a place she had been hearing about for more than 60 years, stretching right back to the beginning of her life in Australia.

Rhoda arrived in Australia in 1962 with her new husband Roger, a mining engineer who had spent the previous two years working in a gold mine in Ghana while Rhoda finished her degree and taught in Fulham in the UK.

When the opportunity came for the newlyweds to move to Australia, Rhoda admits she was daunted by the prospect of travelling so far from the country where she had grown up.

Like thousands of British migrants of the era, they came to Australia under the assisted passage scheme that became synonymous with the term “Ten Pound Pom”.

After interviews, X-rays and plenty of official paperwork, they were accepted and joined hundreds of other hopeful migrants departing from Tilbury Docks.

“We needed to hand in our passports and [were] handed a document of identity, which I still have,” Rhoda recalled.

There was also a catch. Those who returned home within two years could be required to repay the cost of their assisted passage, and Rhoda remembers knowing people whose homesickness eventually became too much.

After six weeks at sea, with several stops along the way, Rhoda and Roger arrived in Melbourne, only to discover their journey wasn’t quite over. They were told to fly to Tasmania, where Roger had a job working at a copper mine on the state’s West Coast.

It was during those early years surrounded by mining communities that Rhoda began hearing stories about Broken Hill.

“Lots of the older mining engineers were always talking about Broken Hill and for 60 years I have wanted to visit,” she said.

Earlier this year, that long-held wish suddenly became possible. Rhoda saw a dear friend at a funeral and knew she was planning a trip to Broken Hill with her Probus club.

“Would they have a spare seat on the bus?” Rhoda wondered.

They did, and after six decades of waiting, she was finally on her way.

The bus journey covered well over 1,000 kilometres, taking the group through country NSW before eventually reaching Broken Hill, a city whose mining history stretches back to the discovery of silver, lead and zinc in the 1880s.

Rhoda was already familiar with mining towns after spending years moving between them, but she found Broken Hill packed with history, stories and characters.

The group stayed in an underground hotel, adding another new experience to the trip, and spent their days exploring the city’s art, mining heritage and surrounding landscape.

A visit to an art gallery was a highlight, with the work of renowned Broken Hill artist Pro Hart immediately coming to Rhoda’s mind, while seeing the Living Desert Sculptures at sunset proved particularly memorable.

“The Sculpture at sunset was a must and many people opened a bottle of wine to salute the people who had created such splendid images,” she said.

The Line of Lode Miner’s Memorial was a more sombre stop. Sitting above the city on the site of the original Broken Hill mining lease, the memorial honours more than 800 people who have lost their lives working in the city’s mines since mining began in 1883.

For Rhoda, whose own Australian story is so closely connected to the mining industry, it was an important part of the visit.

“I feel mining towns should be saluted for the work they do in creating natural resources which play a big part in our economy,” she said.

There was plenty to see beyond Broken Hill itself.

The group travelled to nearby Silverton, which sprang to life during the mining boom of the 1880s and once had a population of around 3,000. Today its mining days have largely given way to tourism, with visitors drawn to its history, galleries and distinctive outback landscape.

Another excursion took Rhoda to White Cliffs, where an underground opal mine proved a hit with the group.

“The opal mine at White Cliffs was splendid and many could not resist a purchase,” she said.

Broken Hill’s history extends well beyond mining, and Rhoda was particularly interested in its connections to the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Queen Elizabeth II visited Broken Hill during her landmark Australian tour in 1954 and toured the Flying Doctor base. The visit became a significant moment in the organisation’s history, with the Queen subsequently granting permission for the service to use the “Royal” prefix.

For Rhoda, the trip also offered the chance to reflect on just how much had changed since she first arrived in Australia as a young woman in 1962.

Broken Hill was a place she had heard older mining engineers talk about when she and Roger were beginning their new life together. Decades later, an unexpected spare seat on a friend’s Probus bus had finally given her the opportunity to see it for herself.

After travelling more than 1,000 kilometres by road, exploring mining history, watching the sun set over desert sculptures, venturing underground and finally reaching the city that had fascinated her for so long, Rhoda believes the journey west is one worth making.

“For anyone reading this, a holiday getting to Broken Hill is very different and there is something to do and interest both young and old,” she said.

And after waiting around 60 years to get there, Rhoda can finally tick Broken Hill off her list.