Day 10 - Mount Isa

Day 10 - Mount Isa

Today I spent the whole day at Mount Isa. This is a mining town, it holds the biggest mine in Autralia, the mine here produces silver, lead, zinc and copper.

I visited a couple of museums today and an underground mine, which  now doubles as a museum, it holds a lot of machinery that is not used on the active mines anymore.

The first museum was one dedicated to Riversleigh, which is an area near Mt Isa where more than half of all fossils found in Oz have been found.

What I found incredible is that I am now here in what is the middle of the peak season. All the attractions are setup for a lot of people; however, there are none. I find myself mostly alone everywhere. It is clear that people are taking advantage of a very strong Aussie dollar and taking their money on overseas trips.

The entry to the fossils exhibition, I bought a ticket, but there are no queues nor staff to get in. there is only a sign at the door asking to let reception know when somebody gets in, for EH&S reasons.

Part of the exhibition itself, very interesting, but strangely, I miss the crowds

This tree is interesting, it was 'blazed', which means that it was marked with a knife. This used to be the method to indicate the way before there were roads. this particular tree was blazed during the search for Burke and Wills

A dentist dream

During the war, when Darwin was bombed, they were worried that the Japanese would bomb Mt Isa as well. So they did what they knew best, they dug a huge tunnel and they moved the hospital into it.

This is the entrance to the underground hospital

One of the rooms in the underground hospital

The Outback Park. What? you knew already?

A local waterhole

This the only photo I have of the underground mine, the experience was incredible, I saw the machines working and I even had a chance to try some of them. They are very, very noisy and dangerous. however, I was not allowed to take my camera under there and the only photo that I have is this one (they charged $10 for this photo)

Bill and Gus, miners

Some nice views of Mt Isa from the top.

All that smoke... I am told that when the wind blows towards the city, they have to stop the smelting. However, with the wind blowing away, I can still smell it

The sign at the centre of the world

 Tomorrow I am leaving with a group of people that I met at the camping, they are all doing the same thing that I am doing, going around Australia. I'll probably spend a couple of days with them, as they are going in the same direction and it would be a refreshing change to share the drive with other people.

Another view from the top