After our stay in the ghost town it was back onto the Barkly Highway and heading for Mt Isa. The Isa is the mining and mineral capital of Queensland. It is pumping money into the economy 24/7 and it is also the FIFO work force that keeps it going. I have heard that approx 70% of the mining workforce do not live in the Isa but have families and homes all over Australia, consequently “fly in, fly out”. It is not tourist friendly most of the caravan parks now cater for the workers with very few sites for tourists and also they are very expensive. So we just stop to stock up on groceries and keep going.
Mineral mountains, actually old eroded hills
Sparkling mica crystals in the rocks when the sun catches it.
Termite town
The termites build these hills and they go well underground. Cities of millions of busy little creatures.
Road train on the Barkly Highway
These are the Kings of the road and this is only a small one. Quite often they will have 4 trailers on.
Curious cows
After passing through Mt Isa it is now pastoral country again and these are the type of cattle that the road trains are carrying. We are in Camooweal tonight and this was droving country. We will be following the old droving trails and learning about the life and times of the droving legends.
Windmills bringing water up from the artesian water table
The stock can only survive if it has water and until the discovery of a huge underground artesian lake, 4000 feet under ground, the squatters could only rely on the rainfall, which was very unreliable. Now you see these huge windmills dotted around bringing up a reliable source of water for the stock.
Tomorrow we will cross the border into Northern Territory. I think the internet connection will then be unreliable. We will also be doing more freedom camping so it may be a while before I can up-date the posts….
gypsy life 