Advertisement
Underground hospital
Built in 1943 in Mt Isa Boulia used to be a major town in the days of sheep, but is fading away as the area has dried out and shifted to cattle. Cattle are much less labour intensive and the advent of the huge stock trucks (capacity of 120 animals) means that there is no infrastructure need, either.
3 May 2011 First we played 9 holes of golf, artificial tees, sand greens and fairways. The fairways were only cracked red mud and bindy grass. Then we loaded up and headed to Mt Isa. This was 301km, our longest tow to date. We had thought of stopping at Dajarra, but were advised not to! When we got there, a local advised there were 200 people living there, 10 of them white. The area looked like it with piles of rubbish everywhere. When we arrived in Mt Isa, stayed at the Sunset Top Tourist Park, which is OK. (Sunset is the name of the road, and Top Tourist is a campground association). Next day went on an underground mine tour. Gosh the work is hard and dirty. And noisy. The main ore is copper and lead with some silver. Its all underground mining, but there is talk of
Apostle bird
Very common. So named because they go round in groups of about 12. converting to open cast. Currently the staff works 4 days on and 4 off, 12 hour shifts. A miner will start at about $50 per hour, more if they already have a trade or a skill. The top guys will earn around $85 to$100 per hour or $200k a year. They earn it.
I found my bike had 2 punctures from a prickle they call “Bindy grass” Added to the puncture kit after that.
Next day, partially packed up and took the van to a company that effected temporary repairs to the awning frame, so we can now use it with some confidence. We’ll probably wait until Perth to take it to the factory for a proper fix.
Played golf at the Mt Isa Golf Course, grass and bindy fairways and sand greens.
Later we drove to a lookout above the town, it looks like Alice Springs – roofs and trees and bare red hills all around it.
We’ve been suffering from an intermittently noisy transformer – located almost under our heads, so I pulled it out and am pretty sure it’s the cooling fan. The unit itself is a proprietary thing hard wired in. I didn’t go any further
Steet sign
Who knows what they get up to? as we had a neighbour, Carl, who insisting on telling me what to do, even though he admitted to not being an electrician. Decided to leave it for a while, but have bought a spare fan at Harvey Norman ($15). In the afternoon, visited the “Underground Hospital” built in 1943 in anticipation of being bombed by the Japanese. It was never needed, but later was used to try to keep new born babies cool in the summer. The museum associated has a large collection of painful looking instruments that would have all been familiar with Pattie’s Dad.
Spent the rest of the afternoon on minor maintenance and shared our dinner with Carl & his wife. Carl has a large VW Toureg with low profile tyres an inch thick and a large caravan with 4 wheels the size of a sixpence. He’s already had several blowouts, so has to stay on two-lane highways as he thinks he is certain to have a blow out if he goes off the seal on to the shoulder. Nearly suggested it wouldn’t cost the earth to buy new rims and tyres, but was tired by then (no pun intended).
On Saturday 7th, everyone went shopping,
On the road to Karumba
Not many hills or vehicles. which meant that there were about 20,000 people in town. We took our lunch and went out to Lake Moondarra for the day. This is artificial created for a water supply for the town and mine. It was created by MIM and gifted to the town in the 1970’s.
Sunday 8th May. Packed up and traveled east to Cloncurry and then turned north and am at the Burke & Will Roadhouse.
B&W is a typical roadhouse – sells fuel, postcards, fast food and t-shirts. Has a camping ground behind the building with power, water and showers and toilets. OK. There were about a dozen vans there either going north or south.
About an hour after we got there a huge convoy pulled in. There were 4 oversize trucks, 2 with bodies and 2 with chassis of mine trucks. 300 tonners. Accompanying them were 4 police vehicles and 8 escort cars and vans.
Pattie asked one truck driver if she could see into his sleeper unit. Well, the R/T’s erupted. Best offer she got was a ride to Normanton and $100!
Dinner was barramundi that we had bought in Mt Isa and takeaway chips from the roadhouse. The owner advised against
Dinner
Barramundi & chips at B&W Roadhouse buying fuel as the tanker was a week late and he only had about 500 litres of diesel left. It will have dirt and water in it, so don’t take it on board unless you have to, he said.
Next morning a lone cyclist came in. We had first met him a few days ago in Boulia and passed him yesterday on the road. Turns out he’s going from Port Augusta to Karumba – a distance of 2,100km.
Then we went through Normanton and on to Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. First time we’ve seen the sea since Bribie Island on the 31 March. The camp, at Sunset Pt has about 175 spaces and its 90% full. There would be over 100 boats here. Typical would be a couple who will stay here for 4 months. They come from Brisbane, Melbourne etc. They’ve bring a caravan and a boat on top of the 4wd and lots of freezer space. And they fish, drink and lie to each other!! The temperatures are up to about 30 – 31 during the day, but 15 or so at night. Currently its very windy, so the fishermen are just drinking, talking and probably
Burke & Wills
This is the deck of a 300 tonne dump truck lying to each other.
P n D
9 May 2011
Advertisement
Tot: 0.051s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 28; dbt: 0.0257s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 2;
; mem: 1mb
Jim Fairweather
non-member comment
Mount Isa Golf Course
Hi Don, I woulkd like to point out that the Mount Isa Golf Course has grass greens not sand as mentioned in your blog. Since the rain and recent coring and sanding by the greens staff, the greens are as good as any coast course and the fairways are lush and inviting.