Mt Isa

On the road again for the long drive to Mt Isa. We were travelling well, when Chris tried to avoid some road train grooves on the left hand side of the road by moving over to the right and then......BANG......we all hit the roof of the truck. What he didn't see was the huge pothole on the right hand side of the road which we hit hard. We were all lifted off the seats and commented how hard we hit it. Not much further down the road, two road trains were heading towards us and Chris jumped on the two-way and said "look out for the huge pothole on your side of the road", the reply came "thanks mate, but that has been there since the last wet season!"

What we didn't know at the time was this pothole would come back later to cause us big problems!!

We stopped again at the Burke and Wills Roadhouse for a break and while we were there about 8 road trains stopped for a rest as well - which Logan got all excited about! He is crazy about the road trains.

Just as we were getting closer to Mt Isa we had something hit the windscreen - we weren't sure what it was at the time, but decided it was a bug of some sort and kept driving. Then about 500m down the road we hit another one....then another one....and then we hit the plague of grasshoppers! It was unbelievable they were flying everywhere hitting the truck and boat like they were hail on a tin roof. It continued for about 500m and then they stopped just as quick as they started.

We had decided to stay at Fountain Springs Rest Area a free camp spot 60km's east of Mt Isa for the night - where the kids talked us into having a camp fire, which in the end was really nice to sit out around the fire, in the dark and be able to look up at the stars and relax. The next morning we headed into Mt Isa - we had to have the Engel fridge repaired, the van inspected and a few other chores to take care off. We had worked out that the fridge stopped working after hitting the pothole but little did we know that this was only minor compared to what was to come.

While here Chris decided he had better check the boat and roof rack after all the rough driving we have been doing - and good thing he did as he found that the whole roof rack had moved forward about an inch - we must remember to check this in the future after any rough roads. After getting all our chores done in town, we headed up to the lookout to see the mines lit up at night. Mt Isa was not at all like I expected - especially seeing as the mines were right in the middle of town. The view from the lookout was amazing at night with all the lights lit up.

Mt Isa was our last stop in Queensland - next stop the Northern Territory!! Yippee - we are all very excited about leaving Queensland and visiting the centre of Australia.