Our camp at Mt Isa
A little delay getting away this morning, the Nissan wouldn’t start! Those of you that have travelled with us before will know that the Nissan has a reputation of NEVER breaking down. When we did the Simpson Desert trip 5 years ago the Nissan got through it virtually unscathed, just a steak knife blade through a tyre and a loose mirror. Today, it had a faulty plug on the fuel pump at the tank. The boys pulled it out and after a few tweaks and gentle persuasion it was working again and should be good for another few thousand km’s at least.
We had a drive around the Mary Kathleen Mine Township ruins then onto Cloncurry for lunch and had a look through their Visitor Information Centre which has an extensive rock and mineral display as well as a lot of memorabilia from the Mary Kathleen Mine Township.
Next stop was the Walkabout Creek Hotel made famous in the Crocodile Dundee movies. There is absolutely nothing special about this pub, it’s only attraction is it’s association with the movies. The publican was very unfriendly.
We thought we might camp around Kynuna tonight but as it wasn’t too late we decided to keep driving and check out the rest stops on the road between Kynuna and Winton as listed in the Camps Australia book. These stops would be fine for a caravan or motor home but were not really appropriate for a tent or camper. It was also really windy and there was no protection from it as the landscape was flat treeless plains so we ended up driving right through to Winton arriving around 7pm then booking into a caravan park. The first one we stopped at, the office was closed but Michael found the manager and they had a look at the available sites as there was only two left and he had been watering them. We decided to look elsewhere as we were not keen on camping in mud and ended up booking into the Matilda Country Tourist Park. We are here for two nights and I dare say this will probably be one of me least favourite places to stay as there are street lights shining everywhere, neighbours 1-2 metres away, only 1 shower and 2 toilets (mens 2 showers, 1 toilet) with 1 hand basin (we think there may be another amenities block elsewhere in the park). Already tonight we have had loud tv played from the camper two camps away, drums being pounded somewhere and a guitar playing and a stream of trucks going to the BP across the road. I just got Jacob to bed when the neighbours came home with a toddler who did a bit of screaming and Jacob was awake, thankfully, with a quick pat from dad he went back to sleep.
