Mt Isa

Arriving at Mt Isa we booked into the Sunset Top Tourist Park, sorted out our site, had lunch, and then took the van back out to the fridge repairers.  Boy, do they have a great business.  We saw their van at the park looking at someone’s fridge every day we were there.  However, as they thought ours might be a gas issue, it needed to be checked at the workshop.  They ran all sorts of tests, and everything came up fine, so in the end they worked out is was actually our van batteries.  They were over three years old, and although the charge appeared to be enough, it wasn’t quite enough to run the fridge.  Meanwhile, with the fridge issues, we turned on the car fridge as a backup, and that gave us an error light, despite the fact we had spent $250 on it just before Christmas.  There was a $20 part that needed replacing, but the case had to be drilled out, so quite a bit in labour.  So our time in Mt Isa was fairly expensive with $900 for new batteries and nearly $300 to the fridge repairer.

From the Mt Isa town lookout

We didn’t mind Mt Isa.  It has everything you need and is well serviced.  We went out to Lake Moondarra, a pretty spot about 16 k's out of town and popular for water sports and fishing.

Part of Lake Moondarra

We also backtracked to the Mary Kathleen mine.  We were glad we did as the ghost town and abandoned mine are very interesting.  The town must have been quite big as there wer many streets.  But all that remains are the concrete slabs from the carports as every building was auctioned off when they closed the town.  The mine, after a few wrong turns, was definitely worth the drive in.  It was an open cut, and has the most beautiful looking pool of water at the bottom of it.  But I don’t think it would be advisable to swim in it.

The only bit of building we could find at Mary Kathleen

Impressive roundabout at the entrance to the town

The abandoned mine

By now Easter was upon us.  We headed into the supermarket as soon as it opened on Saturday to restock before restarting our travels.  

Next stop was Camooweal waterhole, and easy trip which we made by lunch time.  Although a big area, this must get packed out during the winter season, as we were surprised at just how many vans were already there.  Forty-eight hours is supposed to be the maximum stay, and we managed to find a nice spot on the water with some shade.  We had a relaxing afternoon sitting outside watching all the birdlife on the waterhole.  The sunsets and sunrises were magnificent.

Sunrise

Sunset

Camped by a billabong