Hi from The Isa

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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 hole was drilled into the underground basin which is under most of Queensland. The water is hot, so flushing the loo was an interesting experience. It is also the home of Jackie Howe - the undisputed sheep shearing champion of the world. 321 sheep in 7 hours and 40 minutes - with a manual pair of shears.

We stopped on route to Mt Isa at Walkabout Creek Hotel where Crocodile Dundee was filmed. What a desolate place that was - no wonder he went walkabout.
Mt Isa is a mining town and the whole area is dominated by this huge mine. It is quite a metropolis a bit of an oasis in an otherwise unforgiving landscape. We are staying in the Copper City Caravan Park which sounds good, but really isn’t much to write home about - but they do have a Telstra signal so I can use my dongle, which is great. I have been using Messenger to talk to my daughter - which was great fun. According to the signpost at the town lookout we are 15600km from London!

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