Julia Creek

After a fun stay with family in Mount Isa the time had come to say goodbye and leave this Outback City.

Have you heard of the statement 'According to Murphy's Law'? Well, it applied to us at this time. Having driven from Longreach to Cloncurry into W/NW 'head winds' on the way out to 'The Isa', we now face 'head winds' on the way out of 'The Isa'. From Cloncurry to Julia Creek we were punching E/NE winds gusting to 25 km/h. The wind was only one factor against us, the outside temperature was hovering between 43 C and 44 C as well.

I didn't like to push the car this hard, towing the van, so I slowed down our speed to relieve the stress on the vehicle. We were only 20 km from Julia Creek when the engine temp gauge shot up and the Auto Transmission Temp Warning Light came on, the first time I've ever seen it glowing it's red presence. We pulled off the highway and left the engine idling for about 8 minutes. All temperatures 'normalised' and we drove into our free camp 1.2 km east of Julia Creek. Very relieved to arrive without damage to us or the vehicle. The XXXX Bitter tasted wonderfully refreshing.

Julia Creek, a free camp and picnic area 1.2 km east of the Town of Julia Creek. Picnic tables and wood fired BBQ's aplenty. Nature Trail to walk, if you are inclined. We walked around to the other side of the creek and saw the 'slither' marks of a very large snake. We were very happy to not make acquaintances with it.

Our camp from a different aspect.

Jude resting in the shade of the van. Cattle flies were a bit of a nuisance, Jude donned a fly net but that makes drinking your XXXX Bitter too difficult.

Mount Isa

We have arrived in Mount Isa, not for the first time! We have made several visits to this fine city. Having family here in "The Isa" is a compelling reason for us to return often. We are visiting this year for Christmas and The New Year Celebrations as we also did in the year 2010.

The trip overland from the coast was a leisurely 10 days, we found several new (to us) free campsites and met many new fellow travellers along the way.

We are here in "The Isa" until about mid January, our return trip will probably be along the Flinders Highway to Charters Towers and then south to home. You will hear from us again when we are back on the road. 'Till then we would like to wish all our readers a very Jolly Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.

The scene everyone remembers of Mount Isa, The Xsrata Mine and Smelter which is adjacent to the Mount Isa City Centre.

The Town Centre Lookout is off the street opposite The Tourist Information Centre. From the Lookout you can see a panorama of most of Mount Isa and have The Smelter in the background. I took these photographs just to prove that we did in fact arrive here.

You can see other photographs I have captured on a previous visit to Mount Isa here: http://avantouring.blogspot.com.au/2009/11/mount-isa-23rd-october-to-3rd-november.html