Blogs from Mt Isa, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 2

It has been a bit of a rough start to this leg of our journey. We left Mareeba late in the afternoon and headed straight for the hill climb up the range through Ravenshoe. (Qld’s highest town) The rodeo struggled in second gear so we knew we wouldn’t get far till it started to get dark and were all set to camp at Archer Creek where we have camped once before except when we got there it was all blocked off for the markets the next day. So we then had to quickly change our plan and ended up staying at Mt Garnet for the night. The new Avan performed well for us went up easily for us even in the dark. Sunday we headed off again and weren't long out of Mt Garnet when we ... read more

Tuesday 2nd – at 8.42 we were on our way out of the caravan park. We had considered staying another day but decided to go with some great memories. We had woken up to a peculiar, cloudy sky and a cooler temperature but the skies gradually cleared to become the blue we are used to. We made good time and arrived at Dunmarra Roadhouse at about 10.30am. Dunmarra has been an important stopping point for traffic ever since the early pioneers came to the area, as its midway between Katherine and Tennant Creek. It was an interesting place and full of character with murals and photos dotted around. Added to that, some of the large convoy of army vehicles we had seen travelling north were stopped there. Apparently all the equipment is headed for Afghanistan presumably ... read more

We are now in Mt Isa and have at last found some sunshine. In fact it is scorching - no pleasing some people. Barry has burnt his shoulders in their first outing this year. The trip up here has been mostly quite boring, the countryside is so incredibly flat and featureless. We have seen lots of Roos and Emus and plenty of eagles - mostly eating the copious amounts of roadkill. We had a bit of excitement on our way to Blackall, when the rear nearside tyre exploded! It was then that we discovered that the jack wouldn’t go up enough to get the spare wheel on! But ever resourceful Barry got round it in the end without the van falling on his head (which was my worry!) Blackall is the town where the first bore ... read more

Today we stayed around Mt Isa in recovery mode after the long trip yesterday. The weather was clear but windy. It warmed up during the afternoon. This is very much a mining town - the mines produce lead, copper, tin, silver and gold. We walked up to Observation Hill, along Rodeo Drive, had lunch in a coffee shop, had the windscreen fixed, and then visited the Underground Hospital. This hospital had been built inWW2 as security in case the town was bombed - but the Japanese only bombed Darwin. We then went out to Lake Moondarra which is the water supply dam for the town. We are now prepared for the long trip to Hughenden tomorrow. As an aside we were walking down the main street and some Aboriginal children looked at me and told me ... read more

We had a great few days in Mount Isa taking in two excursions (well 3 if we’re counting the night at the Irish Club watching Origin 3). The two we are talking about being the Underground Mine Tour and the coach journey actually in and around a real mine. Both were excellent. You really start to appreciate the scale of things. Open cut 800 metres deep, underground nearly 2km deep. Trucks carrying 250 tonnes of ore. We leave Isa making our way west and then south, Alice Springs and Uluru being our major destinations. It took 6 days to get to Alice staying 2 nights on the QLD border at Camooweal (we’ll come back to Camooweal in a minute) then travelling west on the Barkly Highway, crossing the border into Northern Territory, stopping at Barkly Homestead ... read more