Day 10 - Mount Isa

We're here ! 85 year old Mt Isa - site of the largest silver, lead, zinc and copper mine in the southern hemisphere.  It's our second night now - and we all spent the day doing our own thing and being happy tourists.

Attractions that we visited today included the Underground Hospital, Hard Times Mine for an underground mine tour, the Outback at Isa centre, Riversleigh Fossil Laboratory (hi Dr John), City Lookout and a number of Mt Isa grog-shops !

David spent a productive morning at the dentist having a busted filling replaced (hard to get same day service in the city) while Peter & Jill got a new windscreen and sorted out the problem with their compressor.

We all kept bumping into each other all over town - not surprising because Mt Isa isn't really all that big. It's funny - the town has well and truly grown up around the mine. The first thing you see as you drive over the last hill and into town is the huge smokestack, and then the town unfolds beneath it.

I took a whole bunch of photos today (and over the last few days), and as soon as I figure out the web-albums thing in Picassa, I'll upload plenty and update it here.

We're actually going to take a bit of a different tack with updates - I'll type them up on the road while Jayne is driving and as soon as we get into a good reception spot, upload them to the web.

Everyone on the trip says g'day to everyone who's checking us out on here.

We leave tomorrow morning for Adele's Grove.

Till next time - stay safe !!!

A late update !

We're nearly a week in to the trip now - sitting by the banks of a waterhole just outside of Winton in central Queensland.

We,ve travelled a lot of countryside in the last few days, and have been pleasantly surprised at the coverage of Telstra's Next G network - which is what we're using to update this. Unfortunately, we've been camping in National Parks and bush camping in areas that it doesn't reach.

We're staying in Winton tomorrow night and then in Mount Isa for following two nights, so will have time to do a proper update with more detail including maps of our route and a whole lot of pictures (probably to a Picasa web album).

Sunrise this morning

Tonight's sunset

Day 1 - Canberra to Nyngan

Finally the B I G day happened !

We've gone - left on the trip - departed Canberra.

I'm writing this sitting on the banks of the Bogan River at Nyngan at our first night campsite.

We got off to a great start this morning - everyone was on time, with Dave's wife Carol and their kids Bec & Josh coming along to wave us off in style. We left Ben Hall at 0800 and met up with Ian & Jeanette at the Yass service centre about half an hour later.

We thought we'd lost I & J for a minute - they were parked up having a chat with another 4WD convoy that was heading north-west (with their Kimberly Campers & tinnies) to the Kimberleys. Fortunately they stuck with Plan A and took their possie in our convoy.

The drive today was uneventful - we made good speed on the blacktop, stopping off at Cowra for a quick cuppa for smoko and had lunch at Dubbo. Thommo & Julie guided us into the Riverside Van Park at Nyngan right on schedule at 4o'clock.

I think we were all a bit surprised at how green things were between Canberra and Cowra. Plenty of full dams and green fields everywhere. It changed right on schedule once we left Cowra though and things are looking pretty dry out here at Nyngan.

Once we set up camp on the riverbank, time for happy hour, a bit of trip housekeeping and Thommo awarded Dave the inaugural "Dummy"award - for a made up reason that must remain secret. We'll see who Dave awards it to tomorrow

We've all had dinner now and are chatting and relaxing around the campfire. A great end to the first day.

T minus 4 (days) and counting

Sadly the Tiger-Moth flight had to get put off due to the crappy weather at Camden. It was a good thing we called them before we left because it was a glorious autumn day in Canberra. It looked perfect for a late afternoon flight, however Camden was plagued with strong winds and fairly constant rain - which is not so good for an open cockpit biplane. The flight will be something to look forward to when we get back from the trip.

Staying home gave us the opportunity to do a few more things at a leisurely pace for the trip though . . . our home made rear window protector is fitted, the truck is now packed & ready to go (except for a couple of things to go on the roof rack), laptop and camera batteries are all charged, the external connection to the hi-gain antenna for the wireless broadband modem is sorted and we even managed to get a couple of bags of fresh Somali coffee from Scott & Wade at Kaldi. Our final packing on Friday should now be a breeze !

We're both busy getting things squared away at work and have had some later than usual finishing times, still with a fair bit to do before escaping work on Thursday.

Thommo told us last weekend that everyone is pretty well done with their preparations and everyone is really keen to head out of town - roll on Saturday  ;-))