Queensland Trip Day 23 - Saturday 12 August 2017 - Mt Isa to Diamentina National Park

FAREWELL TO MT ISA

Our first visit to Mt Isa (2010) left us with an impression of the mines dominating the township.That impression hasn't really changed.

Our plan was to use some back roads to travel south rather than the main mostly sealed road.

The little township of "Duchess" and the physical feature "The Monument" were planned visits along the way. We saw two camels in a paddock on the outskirts of Mt Isa (Here is one of them.).

 Good sealed road at first soon gave way to the anticipated unsealed road.

DUCHESS

There wasn't a lot to Duchess - some bulky road maintenance equipment, a couple of derelict houses, some old railway infrastructure - but it did have the Thirsty Camel pub and an unexpectedly recent railway platform.

THE MONUMENT

We were expecting something quite isolated - which it would have been other than being chosen fairly recently for the site of a village supporting a large phosphate mine nearby.

 (OK - Beth commented on the shape. John was gratified at the thought.)

DAJARRA AND BOULIA

We were getting back into arid country.

Dajarra appeared to be a small town with great attitude, but we pushed on quite quickly to keep ahead of an exodus of mobile homes and caravans onto the road south.

Boulia was obviously a service centre for the shire. It capitalises on being the centre of "min-min" country.

We visited the "Min Min Encounter" information centre where we finished up helping the attendant there to find "The Min-Min" by Mavis Thorpe Clarke on Amazon.

In front of the Min-Min centre was one of the Cobb and Co markers for the coach service from Winton, over 300 kms away. We are continually amazed at the extent of the network.

DIAMENTINA

It was still quite early in the afternoon so we decided to push on into the Diamentina channel country although this was a day ahead of our schedule. We were now in flat, arid country of cattle, mirages and gates.

The Elizabeth Springs Conservation Park had an old tank and trough as well as some mound springs.

It was now getting quite late in the afternoon and we decided to camp on Whistling Duck Creek. Sites were spread along the creek and separated from each other by trees and low scrub - very pleasant (in a bushy sort of way).