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Published: September 17th 2014
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No It's Not Hot!!
I'm touching the stream of molten copper, as it pours straight from the smelter bucket, of a replica, of course. We woke at 8am but didn’t hurry out of bed this morning. We both felt a bit lazy. From the window, we could see the open cut mine slag heaps and the trucks taking stuff up the steep road to dump on them, and the 270m exhaust stack from the lead smelter. We decided to see the Outback Experience at the Visitor Information Centre as a start to learning more about the mining in Isa.
Outside the building was a huge replica of one of the smelting buckets in the process of pouring out the molten copper. I couldn’t resist touching the flow – and guess what, it wasn’t hot!
Inside, we paid for the Experience and the Fossil Centre, and for a look down the Hard Times Mine tomorrow morning. We started off in the Experience, where we learned some of the history of John Campbell Miles, who found lead in the area in 1923, while looking for gold. He was instrumental in getting the mine started but got bored before it really made any money, sold his shares and went off gold prospecting, largely unsuccessfully. Some people don’t know when they’re on a good thing!
We
Diprotodon, Largest Ever Marsupial,
Found at Riversleigh, this rhino sized marsupial is herbiverous. Its name means two large front teeth. also learned how the mine grew and developed a part of the township, “Mineside”, for its workers, including houses, shops and even a hospital. The trouble was that the rest of the town, “Townside”, didn’t have access to any of these facilities and were doing it rough. They weren’t even allowed to use the hospital. This caused a lot of bad feeling between the two. In the end, the Townsiders raised money by having raffles and other means and bought on old hospital from Cloncurry that had been in Karalda, now a dead town, and moved it to Mt Isa.
We discovered that Mt Isa is the largest single producer of copper, silver, lead and zinc in the world. They also have the deepest underground mine in Australia, from which they take the copper while the lead comes from open cut pits. We were told that they will soon have to do the copper as open cut as it is getting too deep for safety. We saw some of the equipment they use, too.
One area was set aside for a gem collection, of course, which had some quite large specimens and a large group of polished agate,
Bulluckornis, One Ugly Emu/Cassowary
This flightless bird is from 26,000 years ago, of all colours and patterns, plus a nice citrine.
There were lots of personal stories of the experiences of townsfolk and miners, which really made Mt Isa of those days come alive. One thing they talked about was what the children did and I was very surprised to discover that they had had “Scouts of the Air”, rather like the school of the air. Not sure how that works but they enjoyed it.
We had lunch at the Wakaleo Café in the Centre (named after a Marsupial Lion we would learn more about soon). Next we headed to the other part of the complex, the Riversleigh Fossil Centre. Between the two areas there were some lovely copper murals of some of the ancient animals and a series of 4 beautiful quilts that had been hung on the wall in glass cases. Unfortunately the lights were very dim in the hallway and it was difficult to see the detail.
In the Fossil Centre, we saw a few dioramas showing creatures whose fossils have been found at Riversleigh. They come from three different eras: the Miocene – 30 million years ago; the Plaiestocene – 14 million years ago; and
A BUK Drill Rig
One of the really flat-topped machines used in the mines sixty years ago. This one drilled bolt holes 2.4 metres deep into the walls and roof of the underground drives (tunnels). Rock bolts were then driven in and wire mesh attached to cover them against rock falls. the Pliocene – 8 million years ago (I think I’ve got them the right way round).
There were small animals such as bats; a type of little mouse; marsupial moles; a Thylacine; a Wakaleo, a dog-sized marsupial lion that was one of the largest predators during the Miocene period; a large toothed platypus; and a few mega-fauna, like a Diprotodon, the largest marsupial ever known; a Bullockornis, like an enormous emu/ cassowary type bird, which has a very light bone structure but very large bones, especially when compared to a cow’s thigh bone; and my favourite name – a Thingodonta (I think that translates to Toothy Thing”), which is like a very large snub-nosed kangaroo. We also saw some examples of how they remove the fossils, sometimes by drilling and blasting the rock, which really surprised us. Often the rock they find is packed full of large and minute pieces of bone from a wide range of animals so even once they are out of the rock it is like doing a jigsaw to put them all together.
We also went into the Art Gallery, upstairs, which had an interesting carpet with camels, dancing brolgas and some palm
The Outback Park Trail
This pretty pool and waterfall are on the Outback Park Trail. trees. The paintings were Aboriginal and some, definitely Barry’s favourites, were done in a way which combined traditional and more modern styles and were more colourful.
On the way back towards our caravan park, we passed the Botanic Garden Walk, which was a strip of native garden, about 2.5kms that was parallel to the Highway. Barry dropped me off about halfway, when we started to see plants that were flowering, and he went to get some fuel. The plants were organised into sections that gave locals ideas for what to grow in a range of different soil and climate types. It was very well done and I saw a few tiny flowers I hadn’t seen before. There was also some gymnastic equipment scattered along the walk so people who wanted to run or jog along it could then limber up. What a good idea.
Later, we decided to see the view of the town from the Hilary Street Lookout. There was a signpost at the top showing where and how far many cities from Australia and other countries were from that spot, such as Melbourne – 2008 kms, or London – 15,724kms. It was already dark when we
Mt Isa at Night.
The mine overlooks Mt Isa. Taken from the Hilary Street Lookout. You can see the 270metre stack over the lead smelter. arrived but we had a lovely view of the lights of the town of Mt Isa and the mine itself was even more brightly lit. It all looked lovely.
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