12 February 2000

Well here we are in a nice motel in Mt. Isa after a good run across from Winton. The motel is called "The Town View Motel" and it has a restaurant called "The Abyssinian". Abyssinia is the old name for Ethiopia, and guess what? The motel is run by Ethiopian people. Remember the episode of South Park where the boys received a starving Ethiopian kid called "Starvin' Marvin" instead of the sports watch they should have got for winning a competition? Lorraine reminded me of this. But the motel is very nice and we will probably stay here for at least tomorrow night too. We will have pizza for dinner.

We left Winton around 9:30 a.m. after sleeping in, and drove through Kynuna (where we stopped for a cold drink) and McKinlay before arriving at Cloncurry (where the first Royal Flying Doctor Service base was located, and also from where Qantas began its first service) at around 1:30 p.m. The country west from Winton to around Cloncurry is mainly rolling grasslands and scattered trees. You can tell where the rains have fallen because the grass there is green rather than the more usual yellow. Closer to Cloncurry the country changes to quite hilly, rocky, scrubby terrain which then continues all the way to Mt. Isa. There are lots of termite mounds from before Cloncurry and then all the way through. These are not the giant termite mounds you see elsewhere, but small ones (about 60cm-80cm high) and made of red earth. They do not appear to be magnetically aligned as are their more famous and larger cousins.

Cloncurry is not a bad little town, quiet as are most of these smaller country towns, and we stopped and had some lunch there. We went round to have a look at the museum to John Flynn ("Flynn of the Inland" - founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service) but unfortunately it was closed. On the way out of town we detoured slightly to have a look at the Chinaman's Creek Dam Recreational Area. This is a very pretty picnic and swimming spot where a dam has created a large lake from which Cloncurry draws its water.

Have not yet had much of a chance to explore Mt. Isa - just a quick tour to find a suitable motel and to suss out some eateries for dinner. Will explore further tomorrow after breakfast at Mcdonald's - very swish.

The weather all the way from Winton has been hot, with also a hot wind blowing. There has been a fair amount of high, fluffy cloud cover and when we went to get some tea it looked as if a storm could be brewing with some very heavy, dark cloud building up. It probably won't come to anything. It is now 10:30 p.m. and although there has been no storm there is plenty of heat lightning, but again it probably won't come to anything. There have been floods around Alice Springs, but we won't be going that way.