Mt Isa

30 - 31 July 2014

We had decided to go to Mount Isa for the opportunity to photograph some birds - surprise!. We thought the caravan park on the way to Lake Moondarra (the dam) would be a good spot to stay. Wrong! We were shown to a sort of grassy spot to pitch the tent and realised we were in the middle of a mining camp. - between the accommodation and the mess! It didn't turn out to be as noisy as it might have been, but we really felt like we were camping in someone's back yard. We decided to stay for just one night. We did have a look at other caravan parks but they all seemed to have very cramped camping areas.

In the morning we packed up and drove up to the dam for a look around. Then we headed for Mica Creek on the way to Dajarra so MIck could look for some grasswrens. (They weren't there). We did some shopping and went to the visitor information centre - Outback @ Isa. It's a good spot with many attractions but you have to pay to access most. We paid $12 each to go into the gallery which had lots of interesting interpretive displays, and out into the outback gardens. We asked about camping but were told there were only the caravan parks. 

We had been told by other travellers that you can camp at the old Mary Kathleen mine site so we made our way there. Again we were faced with dry, dusty open ground. There was one nice spot near a dry creek bed - but we didn't fancy putting the tent up under the branches of the big old gum trees, so back to Clem Walton Park.