From Boulia we've headed northwards into north-west Queensland's mining country. About halfway between Boulia and Mount Isa is the small town of Dajarra. It has a good camping area - powered sites for $10 per night, pay at the pub. In its heyday Dajarra was a major transport hub for the cattle industry with graziers droving cattle from as far away as Western Australia for transportation. We opted for a cool drink at the pub and a visit to the museum, $2 each in the honesty box, before making our way through some spectacular scenery.
The terrain became hilly and rocky as we made our way further north and we passed thousands of termite mounds. The dirt became redder too. It reminded us of the country around Alice Springs.
Once settled in at the Sunset Top Tourist Caravan Park, we called into the Visitor Information Centre to check out the local attractions. Unfortunately the City Tour was not running - a casualty of the "off season". It's due to start up again in April. We get very annoyed at the Outback Tourism Industry which seems to think that just because it's not peak season, attractions should just close down from November/December to March/April. We often come across tourists from Europe and North America who are here to escape their winter and who are very disappointed when things they have travelled so far to see are closed. We booked into the Hard Times Mine Tour, luckily we were staying for a few days as the tour is only run when there are at least 6 people booked in and it took 3 days for us to get onto a tour (another off-season problem). We also got tickets for the Mount Isa Experience Museum and the Riversleigh Fossil Museum. Both of these are at the Information Centre and are well worth a visit.
The Mount Isa Experience Museum covered the history and development of Mount Isa from aboriginal times to present day. The traditional people are the Kalkadoon people and they have a keeping place and cultural centre near the Information Centre. Copper, lead and zinc have been mined at Mount Isa for about 90 years; but the mines were not profitable until the 1930s. The museum explored mining development and Mount Isa lifestyles, which centre on the mining industry. Life was certainly hard as mining was all manual with pick, shovel and bucket. These days it's still hard, although done with machinery. The museum also houses the Rex Pickerd Gem Collection, a comprehensive collection of mostly Australian semi-precious gems and minerals.
This small metal boat was fashioned from an old World War II aircraft fuselage. Outside the Museum is the Outback Park with a small lake and native plants. The plants are all named and many of them are edible bush tucker.
The Riversleigh Fossil Museum is also attached to the Information Centre. There are several dioramas depicting now extinct mammals, macrofauna and other animals which inhabited the area some 15,000 years ago. Rich fossil deposits of these animals have been found in the Riversleigh area, a few hours drive from Mount Isa. Fossils include meat-eating kangaroos, birds with teeth and land dwelling crocodiles as well as diprotodons and thylacines. There is a fossil processing laboratory attached to the museum.
On our third day in Mount Isa we were at last able to get onto a tour of the Hard Times Mine, a tourist mine which has been established next to the Information Centre to give tourists a "taste" of mining. We donned orange overalls, hard hats, gum boots and helmet lights and defended about 20metres underground to get a feel of the conditions miners work under. Miners may be paid well - they certainly earn it. We experienced the noise, heat, dust, water and mud in this hands-on experience of the day to day activities of mining. We sat in a "safety capsule", used in case of fire, and had coffee in the crib room, where miners retreat to when explosives are fired. Some of our party donned ear muffs and used the air powered drills - the rest of us put our fingers in our ears to take the edge off the noise. The tour took about 2.5 hours and our guide had worked in the mines for over 50 years.
A few kms north of Mount Isa is Lake Moondarra, the city's main water supply and an aquatic playground. The lake was formed when the Leichhardt River was dammed in the 1960s. There are many picnic areas around the lake, no camping though. We spent a pleasant few hours driving around some of the roads just admiring the scenery - from the air conditioned comfort of our car!
The Mount Isa School of the Air has about 160-170 students located up to 500kms radius from Mount Isa. We've visited a few of these schools on our travels and they're all different. Classes are conducted via the internet, up to about 1 hour per day and students have a lot of interaction with their teachers. Gone are the days of pedal radios, today it's all hi-tech.
After 4 nights in Mount Isa we hitched up and drove 120km east to Cloncurry, another mining town and the 2013 Friendliest Town in Queensland winner, where we're spending a few days. About halfway, we passed the turnoff to Mary Kathleen, now a ghost town, but once a great uranium mining town. Some memories of Mary Kathleen are at the museum.
The museum at the Information Centre has comprehensive displays of all facets of Cloncurry history as well as a short movie about the town. Cloncurry was named by Burke and Wills on their fateful major expedition and was once the major town of the area. There is a memorial tree and other information commemorating the Burke and Wills expedition.
Aboriginal artefacts are on display and there is a large collection of gems and minerals.
Cloncurry is still a major transport hub for road and rail. As we're here over the weekend, some attractions are closed. We hope to see the John Flynn Museum before we leave on Monday.
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