To the Red Centre and back: Day 3: Mt. Isa (Rest Day

I need a rest and the bike needs the rest too… Here it is, resting in front of the cabin. Notice the outhouse? (The little shed on the right) This would have failed my family’s mandatory requirement of a place to stay during their holiday! It was alright for me. It’s clean and it’s cheap... :-)

Anyway, one thing I didn’t mention in yesterday’s posting; the first downside (and hopefully the only one) so far. While travelling between Kynuna and Cloncurry, as you can imagine is another long and lonely stretch, there was hardly anyone else on the road. With the monotonous scenery for miles and miles sometimes you couldn’t even tell whether you are moving or not. I must have speed up a bit and as it so happens, out of nowhere just on the other side of a crest popped out a police trooper!!! Within a split second his siren was blaring and he made a U-turn – I knew this was going to be the lowest point of my trip… I received a "souvenir" from the kind police officer of Cloncurry. It’s a severe dent to my budget! Come to think of all the money I tried to save and here I did such a stupid thing and cost me money for nothing! I was so depressed the whole journey, it took me a while to recover. I just sat for a long time by the roadside in front of a grocery store in Cloncurry pondering on what had happened. This is NOT one of those moments I was hoping for…

Anyway, I had to accept what I deserved. You guys can help you know – now, start clicking all those ads on this blog and help me raise fund to pay the traffic ticket! Pleeaaasseeee….!!!

I decided to count my blessings and try to look on the positive side. Isn’t it good that it happened earlier on in the trip that it becomes a reminder for me not to ride too fast for the rest of the journey? I also decided not to let any mishap spoil the spirit of this journey. I move on… Sigh… it’s just that riding with the auto cruise on in this kind of road is so boring it would even affect my concentration. Well rules are rules… And let that be a very valuable lesson to you all too… Speeding is dangerous – to your life and your pocket!

Today I decided to explore Mount Isa (I have to spell in full now; if not some people thought I was referring to Mat Isa!). Having surveyed the brochures and internet, I chose to go to the “Outback at Isa” complex. I read that in Bill Bryson’s book Down Under.

They have this Underground Mine Tour in a real mine which I’m sure would be very cool. Everywhere I read their advert, it says, “BOOKING ESSENTIAL”. So I called them up early in the morning hoping to be able to get a place in today’s tour and to my surprise, the lady said, “Sorry, we might not have the tour today as there has been no booking”. Apparently, I was the only one! I still insists that she put my name down and I said I will come around the time of the tour in case some tourists came along (for once I was looking forward to bump into one of those bus load full of Japanese tourists!). I arrive there earlier than time hoping to be able to browse through the complex while waiting for my tour. To my surprise again; I was the only visitor there! The lady explained that this is their quiet season – I know, but I never expected it to be THIS quiet. Anyway, in the spirit of don’t-worry-be-happy, I took the “Isa Experience Gallery”, “Outback Park” and “Riversleigh Fossil Centre”. To my nice surprise this time, it was good! I learnt a lot about the history of the town and the mining process. And the Outback Park is a little park with collection of all the floras you can find in the outback – all in one place. There was this lizard too who spooked me but I don’t think it was part of the exhibits. And oh those annoying flies… they are everywhere!!! Plenty of pics below.

The highlight of my visit was when I got a special personal tour (what do you expect; I was probably the only visitor for the day!) by the resident palaeontologist Dr. John Scanlon around his lab. Hey, this is a real deal palaeontologist okay; not like Ross Geller! And I get to touch a 26 million year old fossil! How cool is that!!!

There are so many stories to tell about the visit but I guess I would have to tell it in person later. By the way, do you know that there were 52 nationalities among the thousands of miners back during the WW2 period? Each of them had their own football team; except for Australia! There once lived carnivorous kangaroos 2 meters tall! A day’s gathering of fossil-containing rocks takes a year to analyse. Riversleigh’s water is super-saturated lime and that’s why the animals were properly fossilized. Ok, stop; now I’m beginning to sound like Ross!

Next stop is the City Lookout. It was beautiful but in the 38°C temperature, it was a bit unbearable. I decided to come back at dusk as recommended by the tourist brochure.

Went back, had a good nap, then went out again. Yes, it is more bearable now… I decided to switch off my SatNav as I already learnt the street within a day. I noticed the multi-ethnicity of the population just like the video I saw. I find it fascinating that a place out in the nowhere is like a mini world of its own. And it was so easy to find the Chinese Takeaway and the Indian Restaurant. And the people were very friendly too. Here’s the little girl at the caravan park who stopped by on her bicycle to have a chat with me. When I ask her, shouldn’t she be talking to strangers, she said, “Oh yes, my mum told me not to stop and chat with people…”, then she went off.