We stopped in Cloncurry and checked out Wals Camp which offers special deals for motorhomers. It turned out to be a very dusty bush camp with bore water and not much else so we bought fuel at the amazing price of 90cents/l and headed off to Mt Isa.
Jean bought me a birthday present, a beautiful toy dog about 20 cm high and with a very appealing face. His name is Dog and he comes to happy hour with us and sits on the tucker box.
The country has changed from Mitchell Grass plains to rocky mountain country. Cloncurry used to be a mining town and Mt Isa still is. Clearly the geology here is a bit like Broken Hill with some ancient upwelling of mineral laden rock now forming rocky hills which can be usefully mined for a number of minerals.
Mt Isa is a bit like Broken Hill with the mine dominating the town but, though the population is much the same, the town centre is smaller than Broken Hill and not so interesting.
The Town Council has offered us Kalkadoon Park, the rodeo ground, for free camping as we rest up before driving into the Northern Territory to Alice Springs. There are about twenty motorhome here now and the caravan park owners are kicking up as usual. When the town Tourist Development Officer, who arranged for our stopover, talked to them he discovered that they only had seven suitable sites between them. He told them all to pull their heads in as the rest of the town will benefit considerably from our business.
We went into town to find an someone to mend the air conditioner and to visit the Apple Service Centre.
Eventually we found the one company in Mt Isa who could look at the aircon and we booked in for early tomorrow morning.
After shopping, we tracked down the Apple Centre only to find it had gone out of business. We'll have to wait until we get to Alice Springs which is probably just as well.
Up at sparrow fart to get across the town to see the aircon man. Diagnosis - new compressor. Question - How Long? Answer - It has to come from Brisbane, maybe Saturday, certainly Monday. Happily were not in a hurry.
We went back into town and visited the Riversleigh Interpretive Centre.
We all went to the RSL for dinner. I suppose we have all been spoiled by the RSL at Forbes which managed to serve 200 of us without any notice between 6 and 9 o'clock. Last night we were only 40 and we had arranged to be there before six but the last meal was served just before 9. Although the food was good, there were plenty of disgruntled people.
Our new compressor has arrived from Brisbane and we spent the morning at the aircon repairer. The job only took two hours and we now are back to full specification. I can only hope that this compressor lasts longer than the last.
We had a communal barbecue dinner with our nearest neighbours and laughed a lot.
Rest Day.
Into town to do the laundry and the shopping.
Jean volunteered to go to Bingo with some of the other ladies. She lost all of the winnings she won all those years ago at her first and only visit to the pokies at the Manly Warringah Leagues Club.
I stayed here to do some chores. I managed to do half of the modification to the solar panel wiring. The rest will have to be done another day.
One of the ladies in the group had expressed a desire for curry so I spent the day cooking for about a dozen people. I did a mild and a hot (well medium really) beef curry, dhal and potatoes cooked in the Motley with lots of papadums cooked on the camp stove. They all seemed to enjoy it thoroughly.
We went to the Irish Club for lunch. I enjoyed a couple of pints of draught Guinness and Jean won back some of her pokie losses.
I have been having trouble getting my email ever since we left Brisbane. \While we were waiting for the courtesy bus, I used the Telstra Internet kiosk in the club to check my account using mymail.com.au. To my astonishment I had 116 messages.
The house batteries have failed so we went into town to find a battery shop. Easy. Out here solar systems are common so we were able to buy new batteries over the counter. The replacement s are significantly bigger than the originals so we now have some margin . We have been using about 80 AHrs each night which was the maximum acceptable discharge for the 170 Ahr batteries. We still use 80 Ahrs each night but still have 40 AHrs available in the morning. This, together with the generator, should ensure that we have no significant problems in the future.
Our contribution to the economy of Mt Isa grows!.
While they were fitting the batteries, I borrowed their fax line and downloaded my email. I had found that the settings in Eudora had got changed (those damn gremlins) which was why I had been having trouble since we left Brisbane. The nearest POP to here is Alice Springs and I had 116 messages to download with several people kindly sending me pictures which all took 12 minutes. I didn't add to the cost by uploading the website. I'll do that in the Alice where I can use a local call.
In the evening everyone else watched the Olympic Games Opening ceremony so I had time to go through all the emails which had accumulated.
Fran, one of our members who lives in Mt Isa had organised for the RSL to put on a barbecue to raise money for the building of veterans housing. The Mayor, the RSL President and the local TV were all expected to attend. Someone suggested that we should have a banner to put up at the BBQ thanking the town. I spent the better part of the day making one.
In the event, the fundraising committee of the RSL pulled out of the venture on the grounds that they didn't want to offend the townsfolk who object to our presence. Fran understood that the RSL would supply the food and the labour to cook it but when they pulled out she had to pay for all the food. The end result was a revenue of $550 and an expenditure of $240 so they got $310 even though they didn't participate (they would have got $550 if they had).
Fran and her husband will resign from the RSL after a lifetime of membership if they don't get an acceptable apology.
The barbecue was very successful socially as well as financially as everyone had to mix and we talked to many people who we had not met otherwise.
In the evening we took Dog to the dog show. As is his way, he didn't comment on the strange sight of grown people being run around a ring by their dogs.
Rest day. It is too windy to finish the work on the solar panels.
Laundry, shopping, fueling up, and happy houring.
We are fewer in number at Kalkadoon Park as many have left to go to Alice Springs already. We have decided to go late as there will be masses of motorhomes competing for the available camp sites along the road. We hope they will move on before we get there. Maybe we will go tomorrow.
We have had a much longer stay here than we expected and is has been very pleasant.