August 6 Mt Isa

Not much went on – a “look around” day! We went up a lookout in centre of town – quite a spectacular view in all directions. There was also a good view over Buchanan Park where the rodeo and race-course are located. We drove down and had a look at the rodeo venue – VERY, VERY impressive! It’s called Kalkadoon Stadium after the local aboriginal people – I read somewhere it had cost sixteen million dollars to build. It has a two-tiered grandstand on one side, another grandstand at one end and a covered “hill” area at the other. Opposite the grandstand are the chutes and yards for organising the stock. Put down a turf surface and it would make a magnificent footy stadium.

Tonight it’s the venue for the Bull Ring – this was described to me as the “20/20 cricket version of Rodeo” – should be good fun!

This morning we paid a visit to the Riversleigh Fossil Centre. If our plans hadn’t been hijacked by the car problems we had planned to visit the actual fossil site while we were at Adels Grove so this was some small consolation. It was interesting to see some of the fossils which have been uncovered and also models of the creatures which inhabited this part of Australia twenty million years ago.

After lunch we paid a visit to the Underground Hospital. During World War 2 with the Japanese threatening invasion, they built a hospital under one of the hills in Mt Isa. It’s been set up and furnished just like the original, complete with hospital beds and equipment.

We made a decision in relation to the car today. Originally we had wanted to continue on to Cairns by following our scheduled itinerary. However we both had a fairly sleepless night worrying about the “what ifs” so this morning I suggested to mum that we leave here on Monday and head to Townsville to get it repaired. Mt Isa Automatics had given me a contact in Townsville and when I rang them they were able to book the car in for next Wednesday. The only thing to worry about now, is to hope that nothing goes wrong before we get there, as it’s a bit under 1000 km! Following the original plan and going to Cairns would have been 1600+ km.

We’re booked into The Lakes Holiday Park from Tuesday night, for a week so hopefully that will be long enough. If not, we’ll just have to extend. In any case, I’ll get in touch with the NRMA and activate my premium membership benefits for when we get there.

Action Automatics in Townsville were quite helpful and indicated they may be able to get an exchange torque convertor in 1 or 2 days or have ours reconditioned in 3 or 4 days. Brisbane will be the centre of the action in this regard. It turns out that the guy who helped us out with advice on Monday did his apprenticeship down there. Seems a better plan than the original.

Once the car is back on the road we’ll have a think about where to go next. We could go back up to Atherton and do what we were originally planning; we could go up the coast to Mission Beach or we could just start making our way back down the coast. Obviously the cost of the repairs might be a determining factor.