Karumba, Cloncurry and Mount Isa

23/7/2015

Again a lovely breakfast in the morning sun – I extremely enjoy a quiet start of the day, outdoors, surrounded by nature.

First stop was at Karumba, a little village by a river and the sea at the gulf of Carpentaria. Stef suggested that I make this 160km (!!!) detour because of the cool name – sounds almost like Karamba.

Karumba is a remote little place with many fishermen and a small, local bakery that I visited for a lunch time coffee. Took some photos along the river, then moved to the other part of the settlement at the shore and took some more photos. The sunset tavern is in a beautiful spot, I totally believe that evenings there are great.

Not bad for the middle of winter

Today I had an extremely long day driving, with just two short stops to take photos all the way to Cloncurry, almost 700km in total. It was a sunny and warm day, a bit over 30 degrees all day long. Am I glad that I got the aircon in the van fixed before I started the trip! The road was partially single lane again and I had to evade quite a lot of oncoming traffic, slowing me down a bit in every instance. There was quite a lot of roadkill along the way and literally hundreds of kites and some eagles were either circling, feeding on the fresh kills or narrowly escaping the very infrequent traffic.

I saw two different tall, stork like birds as well along the road – if any expert is reading that please let me know which birds they really were.

Today I particularly enjoyed listening to Dave, the Bulletproof Executive on his Bulletproof Radio Podcast. Dave was interviewing a lot of super interesting people. Some more books for my reading list: Robert Greene: Mastery, Nina Teicholz: The big fat surprise – Why butter, meat and cheese belong in a healthy diet, Kelly Starrett: Becoming a supple leopard (already been on my list for a long time!) and Kelly Starrett again with: Ready to run – unlock your potential to run naturally.

Really remote places - next coffee shop with proper coffee: 391.8km

It's always great to listen to interviews with people that are on the forefront of knowledge or that have made it in certain areas. Especially on long drives, helps to keep an open mind and staying up to date on what new research suggests. As soon as I'm finished traveling I need to work on Jim Kwik's Speed-reading course material again, with all these books waiting for my attention.

Cloncurry seems to be a typical remote Australian mining town, the flair didn't strike me at all and when I checked in I didn't really feel welcome at the caravan park. Long time since I had that feeling. On top, I realized that a stone from one of the trucks has chipped my windscreen on the far left. I immediately put a sticker on the spot, hope it doesn't crack.

Cloncurry used to be the centre of this region until the 1960 when Mount Isa was developing, getting riches passed through it due to the uranium mining at Mary Kathleene. According to Wikipedia, the first ever Royal Flying Doctors Service of Australia took place from Cloncurry on 15 May 1928, using a de Havilland DH.50 aircraft hired from the then small airline, Qantas. The flying Kangaroo has grown quite a bit since then!

What are you looking at?

Don't know if that bird wanted to impress me or the other one...

I want to be a bat!

Definitely not me then!

Distance traveled: 684km

24/7/2015

Another early morning photo-shoot with some local wildlife before my healthy breakfast.

Healthy breakfast

There is a dam, just outside of Cloncurry that I visited and I was blown away by the awesome colours there. The surface of the lake reflected the scenery nicely, amazing spot!

Local marketing is quite strong in Australia! How many best drives have I seen so far? Plenty!

Next I stopped at a ghost town called Mary Kathleene. What once was a uranium mining town is now not only abandoned, but actually gone – no more buildings are there, just empty, decaying streets, some concrete slabs, campers that use this places as free camp spot and some termite mounts. Nature is slowly reclaiming this area. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed, I was hoping for some old, ruined buildings to take pictures of.

I followed the rough road another 6km further to see the left overs of the mine, but it got a bit too rough for the van in the end, so I went for a walk and took some photos instead. Not sure I really want to get too close to uranium tailings or mine waste.

There are super long road trains on the road between Cloncurry and Mount Isa, up to 53m long – some of them have 4 trailers! Takes quite a while to overtake them – the V8 would have come in handy.

Mount Isa is a mining town and on a sign just outside town it says that you can call yourself an Australian now that you have been to 'the Isa' as they call it. As it was still relatively early in the day, I continued to the wonderful artificial lake called Lake Moondarra. Lots of great opportunities to take photos – dozens of kites flying, some of them picking up food scraps from other people with sensational aerial maneuvers. I really like birds of prey – keen eyed, quick, powerful in the air and these kites make a wonderful whistling sound. This lake is providing Mount Isa and the mines with water.

Diving down, exactly in front of the only (1) light pole

Eyes on target

Different bird for a change

Picked something up from the round with the claws, then put it in his beak

Got some food as well - left claw

Picked up from the ground

realized they were twigs only, not food, so dropped it

I drove back into MountIsa to get to the lookout and check out how the area looks from up there. The huge mine site and processing is dominating the landscape. Not a really beautiful sight despite the wonderful surrounding landscape. However, the rich, deep colours from the surrounding landscape allows magnificent pictures to be taken.

Mount Isa

Road train downtown with 4 trailers

Sure, had to check out the best local coffee shop

Tonight I'm staying at Rhonda's house. Rhonda is a friend of Stef, living and working in Mount Isa, they were on the same MBA course together at Curtin. Wonderful house she shares with 4 other young adults from what I can say so far – we'll have a meal and a few drinks.

Distance traveled: 187km