Mt Isa

Crocodile Dundee Pub

We left Winton for a long journey to Mt Isa.  We stopped off at McKinley to visit the Crocodile Dundee Pub - The Walkabout Creek Pub.   We wander around the pub looking at all the photos and watched several grey nomads enjoy a 10.30am brew.  A bit early for us.  We continued our drive to Cloncurry were we pulled in for some lunch at a local park.  Another quick stopped then on we continued.  We arrived in Mt Isa late afternoon.  We pulled into Big 4 to organise our stopover only to be told no sites available.  We then ventured a further way and tried the Mt Isa Caravan Park and was given the same answer.  Oh oh what to do!  

We went to the Information Centre only to be told that it was booked out in Mt Isa and the only place to stay was the RSL Club carpark which was an overflow site.  That'll do..at 5pm what else could we do.  We arrived to find the committee directing us to the correct area.  They then opened up the bar and put on meals because they had around 25 caravans sitting in their parking lot.  That pretty cool of them to do that.   We stayed 3 nights in the overflow area.  No showers but the Information Centre had them for $2 for 5 minutes.  At least we could sneak around the back of the RSL and use the toilets.  That was a bonus.  We met some lovely people in the carpark including Ruth and Jeremy and Darly and Lyn.

In our tours of Mt Isa we visited the lookout and the fun park.  We would have love to do the underground mind tour but due to the kids ages this was not possible.  We did spend a bit of time watching the ingoing and outgoing at the mine that was across from the RSL club so that gave Austin and Kaleb plenty to do.  While at the fun park the kids made it a quest to use every piece of play equipment available to them.  They ran from one piece of equipment to the next.  With $4.2million worth of climbing, swinging, water park equipment you can find, there was plenty to do.  They had an absolute blast. 

We really didn't get much done here but we still enjoyed ourselves.  The mining industry really is a huge thing in this town.  Which explains why it is so difficult to get in.  Next time we will book ahead at Mt Isa.  The second time in our whole trip we haven't been able to get a spot where we wanted to stay.  That's not a bad average after being on the road for 4.75months.  We say goodbye to Queensland as we leave today.  Our next stop the Border of Northern Territory.  Can't wait.