2011 Trip: Into Queensland at Camooweal and then Mt Isa

4th August
I always feel good when we cross into Queensland. I just feel sort of at home. I reckon QLD and WA are very similar.

This afternoon we camped at Camooweal Billabong (QLD Camp 315 in CAW 6). This is on the Georgina River just on the western outskirts of Camooweal.

There was quite a bit of birdlife there, including some very graceful Brolgas.

This is a very popular free-camp site and there were plenty of vans there when we arrived. All the good spots were taken but many travellers left in the morning and, if we had been staying longer we would have moved into one of them.

As it was we drove into town and got in line at the BP servo ahead of 43, that's right 43 !!, Army vehicles all wanting diesel. There was a steady stream of army vehicles, low loaders with tanks etc, heading back to their base in Darwin from a couple of months in Townsville.

With full fuel tanks we continued eastwards.

5th August
This afternoon we entered Mt Isa. We haven't been here before. We booked into the Big 4 Argylla Tourist Park. It was nice. Here we bumped into Lyall and Trish, owners of a Spinifex van I had communicated with several months earlier and Ken & Lyn had met them at the Spinifex factory. It was a pleasant afternoon talking vans with them. We passed on greetings from Dave & Shell because I knew they would want us to.

Robyn and I drove up to a lookout and behind us was this house sitting on this flat top hill. What a view. It was for sale too.

We also drove out to Lake Moondarra. What a beautiful spot. We should have come out here for a picnic lunch. It was delightful.

There was also a very nice picnic area at the back of the lake as well.

We went on the Hard Times mine tour which was well done. This is a specially created underground mine specifically for tourists. The strange thing is some bright spark decided to ban tourists from taking cameras but they take our photo and try to sell us a paper copy for $10. Who on earth lugs around paper copies these days? Why not put the price of the tour up by $5 and allow us to take our own photos?

I wasn't expecting to enjoy Mt Isa, but we did. It's a nice place.