Mount Isa

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Even though I'm yet to depart, Mount Isa is my starting point. My family and I moved here for work about seven weeks ago and we've been presently surprised. If you're not into active travel then Mount Isa probably isn't for you; the shopping's terrible, there's one small cinema in town and there's not much else for the lethargic other than the pubs. But if you don't mind getting out then this place is breathtaking.

The drive from Cloncurry to Mount Isa is amazing. The geological formations along this stretch of the Barkly Highway arose from millions of years of geological shifting and erosion. It's quite spectacular entering this stretch of road as the drive through outback Queensland is essentially flat, bare and dry. As soon as you leave Cloncurry though, it's hills, rocky outcrops, forests and creeks.

On the road from Mount Isa to Cloncurry is a turn off that is easily missed for a township called Mary Kathleen. Well there used to be a township here. Mary Kathleen was a small mining town that disappeared when the Mary Kathleen mine closed. All of the houses, and everything else in the town too, was auctioned off state wide. All that's left are the bare concrete slabs where the miners' houses once stood.

There is also the Clem Walton park, next to the Corella Dam, on this same stretch of road. This is now a beautiful nature reserve and served as the water source for Mary Kathleen.

Back closer to Mount Isa is Lake Moondarra, the main water source for the city. The drive into Moondarra is on an unsealed road, over little creeklets, and past acres and acres of beautiful hills. On arriving at the lake there is a park on the banks where you can head off for a bushwalk on a track to the rear. A little further along is the Lake Moondarra lookout. From here you get a 360 degree view over the spectacular landscape. Lake Moondarra itself is pretty striking, but so is the area behind the dam wall. Because of the lack of water behind the dam wall, and the ring of hills surrounding the landscape, it looks as though this was the location of a meteor and the landscape is the resulting crater.

Over the next couple of weeks that I've got in Mount Isa before I leave I intend to visit a few of the local Indigenous organisations and visit some of the local Indigenous art and sacred sites (with permission of course). I know of a rock art site on the Mount Isa to Cloncurry stretch of the Barkly Highway, but I know that there are more sites too.

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:D Check out the following forum thread. http://www.travelblog.org/Forum/Threads/12381-1.html