'We're Real Aussies now'

Well we checked out the Qantas museum in Longreach, - basically the museum appears to be a collection of videos showing archival footage. The main attraction was a tour of a plane and a wing walk! At present the wing walk is on a 707 as the 747 is sinking into the tarmac. We decided to leave it this time, hopefully we'll be back next year and the 747 will be standing firm again.
So we continued westward to Winton. Dinosaur Capital of Australia and Home of Waltzing Matilda.
The Dinosaur stuff looked really interesting and we're going to check out the possibility of volunteering at a 'dig' next year.
 But this time around we started out with the Winton Diamantina Heritage Truck and Machinery Museum.

 I know that we said that we'd had enough of rusty exhibits but only some of these were rusty (they were the ones out the back) and they had a wheel at each corner! It was a sweet little museum and surprising (to me anyway) because most of the vehicles were English - apparently they were more popular in Aus. than American trucks.

Then we headed back to the main street and the Waltzing Matilda Centre, with a statue of Banjo Paterson.

        This was a completely different enterprise - a huge complex with high tech exhibits.

                                                        The Billabong Theatrette.

In one room they had multiple recordings of the song - Waltzing Matilda - you selected which one you wanted to listen to - my favourite was a Dame Edna recording from 1979, a disco version. Apparently  it's Barry Humprhries' favourite too. As we left that area we could hear it playing again, obviously another visitor's choice too.
We lost ourselves in there for about 3 hours, as well as the areas dedicated to Waltzing Matilda, there is the history of Winton and the Qantilda Museum covering the start of Qantas - local expression is that QANTAS was conceived in Cloncurry, born in Winton and grew up in Longreach.

Then we made our way to the caravan park and setup in the shade for some rest. Glad to discover that Winton does not have sand flies, I still have the swollen bites from Longreach.

Next day we went on to Cloncurry, on the way passing through Kynuna, population 20, with a roadhouse and the Blue Heeler Hotel, built in 1889.
And McKinlay population also 20, famous for the Walkabout Creek Hotel, featured in Crocodile Dundee movie, we drove on, stopping for lunch at a little rest area.
The scenery continued to change as we drove on but was still green; then it was a pale yellowy green but still with abundant grass. The grass is the legendary spinifex. Still lots of those birds of prey hovering over the road, mostly in groups of 5 or 6 but some groups of around 15.
I was lucky enough to spot a Brolga at a waterhole but Michael missed seeing it.

We got into Cloncurry around 2.30pm but as it was Sunday afternoon the place was really quiet. Most of the activity was at the petrol station but at 172.9c/l for diesel we didn't top up the tank.
The caravan parks looked well kept and inviting but there was nothing special to keep us in town so we decided to go the extra 120kms to Mt Isa.

Almost immediately after leaving Cloncurry the scenery changed dramatically - there were trees, rich red dirt and mountain ranges.

 The Mt Isa area was stunning - but it is a mining town and is dominated by the Xstrata mine on the western edge of town.

Our main requirement for a caravan park in a large town is its proximity to the commercial centre, so that we can walk in and have a look around. We had to drive around Mt Isa a couple of times before finding a caravan park 1.2kms from town. We checked in for 2 nights to give ourselves a whole day in town. (there is a K Mart after all). There were 3 WA registered vehicles in the park, camped near us, but the first couple that we spoke to were actually from Switzerland. The other 2 couples were from Geraldton and had only taken 3 weeks to get here from home, they were hoping to go to Normanton on the Gulf but had heard that the roads were closed.

We had a rather restless night due to lots of noise around, dogs barking, people chatting, music playing.
Some from other park residents but some from the neighbouring houses.
The next morning the 'bed wetters' were up and starting to leave around 6.00am We did manage to get a good sleep from 7.15 to 9.00.

After a slow start we walked into town - not a pedestrian friendly town, it's designed for the motor car to take you from one shop to the next! I had checked online and thought that there was an Aldi in Mt Isa - wrong!! We've have to make do with an IGA to stock up for the Northern Territory.
We did however find a good bookshop with a large secondhand section!!
Michael was starting to flag in the heat (still around 34degrees) so we went back to the van for lunch and a siesta.

Whilst in town we popped into the Optus store and checked out the coverage for the next couple of weeks, and it looks as if we'll be okay, there's good cover in Alice Springs, Roxby Downs and Port Pirie as well as a small pocket of cover in Tennant Creek and at Yulara (Ayers Rock resort).

Tomorrow on our way out of Mt Isa we'll visit a couple of tourist spots, the Underground Hospital and the lookout. Then we'll be heading out to the western edge of Queensland and into the Northern Territory - exciting stuff!!

               The title for this 'post' of the blog is because the motto / slogan for Mt Isa is:
                 
                "You're not a real Aussie 'till (sic) you've been to the Isa"     catchy isn't it?!