Back to Mt Isa

After leaving Kakadu we spent a couple of long days driving through the Northern Territory back to Queensland, 658 km the first day and 582 the second. We stopped at Katherine on the first day to stock up on supplies as there was no shopping at Mary River Roadhouse, and once we got into Queensland we lost half an hour on the clock. Most of the second day's drive was due east across the Barkly Tablelands, fighting a headwind the entire way. With the caravan providing drag we could just about see the fuel gauge dropping! After all that we still had another couple of hundred km to go on the third day to get back to Mt Isa.

Needless to say once we got to Mt Isa we stopped for a rest for a couple of days. Last time we were here we did most of the attractions on offer, but we still found enough to occupy ourselves. We picked up a brochure from the visitor centre for a tourist drive around some old mine towns, and had a lovely day exploring. The trail started about 60km from Mt Isa, and on the way we visited the remains of Mary Kathleen, the town attached to the uranium mine. This was active from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, at which time the mine was closed down and all buildings in the town sold off. All that remains now are concrete slabs on well laid out streets, many still with kerbing intact.

Just past Mary Kathleen we turned off the highway onto a dirt road, to the ghost towns of Bulonga, Ballara and Hightville. Actually, the term 'ghost town' implies a lot more than is really there, which is barely even as much as at the Mary Kathleen site. Ballara, which during the First World War was the rail head for shipping all the local copper production to the east coast and boasted a population of over 1,000, can now only be identified by the remains of the rail siding, with no other ruins remaining at all. Bulonga still had a few concrete foundations in the bush, the weir damming the local river to supply water to the mine and township was the only relic surviving in reasonable condition.

The track to the ruins of Hightville, and the remains of the railway tunnel nearby, was very narrow and rough, even in 4wd we never got out of second gear, and on at least one of the (dry) creek crossings we needed to engage low transmission just to get up the other side. It certainly

gave the Patrol a work-out! The trail also visited Fountain Springs, which must have been a very welcome permanent water supply in the arid landscape. The whole area was abandoned after the First World War when copper prices dropped, although some hardy prospectors are still poking around hoping to strike it rich.

On our other day in Mt Isa we (naturally) had a game of golf. We also stocked up on supplies ready to continue our journey across the outback towards the coast.