Friday 27th June

This morning it was pack up and say good bye to Mt. Isa. When we actually removed ourselves from bed, at the early hour of 0630, the dismantling of the annex commenced. The fold up chairs and table were packed into their bags. Then the annex, which was supervised during construction by our good friend Angie, was lowered on the poles first followed by their total removal and storage. Then the annex was removed from the Karavan while it was still up then folded and stowed. Then the KK was lowered for travel.

When we left the Sunset Caravan Park, where we had been for the past 3 nights, we went and refuelled. The diesel price at the Shell station in Mt. Isa was 179.9 cents per litre minus 4cents discount for having shopped at Coles supermarket and another 2 cents off from purchasing some items after loading with fuel. The diesel tank for the heating and cooking was also topped up as was the diesel and petrol jerry cans locked onto the Karavan.

After that quite expensive event, we went to post some letters and cards at the Post Office. Then, before we could do anything else, we visited Gloria Jean’s for coffee. Apparently it is the best place for coffee in Mt. Isa as the Police seem to sniff out the best places in any town or city.

Following our coffee stop, we then went and spent some time at the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) base in Mt. Isa. We looked over the many items of history in relation to the RFDS especially in and around Mt. Isa. When looking through the mid 1960s history we came across many articles of interest about Dr. David Cooke who used to be one of our Doctors in Gunnedah for quite a while and now is in Port Macquarie. He was very young then having not long graduated from Sydney University Medical School. He already was a commercial pilot and owned his own aircraft, an Auster, which remained in Sydney. We also purchased a few items from the RFDS shop.

From there we moved out of Mt. Isa on the Barkly Highway. We had decided that we would stop and have sandwiches for lunch at a rest stop along the way. Quite a few other travellers were there too.

After our lunch break, we travelled on to Camooweal. It is just a little village on the highway about 23 kms from the Northern Territory border. We stopped and walked along most of the main street and had a coffee in the Post Office which is also a general store and internet cafe. By now, we had travelled at least 180 kms for the day.

We travelled about another 70 kms to a free park at Avon Downs opposite the Police Station. As I indicated to turn in to the camp site, I was breathalysed by the Police Officer and he did a registration check of my Bravo and the Kimberley Karavan. He was very pleasant and chatted telling us he was an escapee from the Sydney rat race.

Other than large cattle yards about 2 kms to the south east and the Police station there is not much more around except about 20 camping units, caravans, motor homes and camper trailers. So a night with numerous travellers from all over the country and possibly overseas, too.