Day 49: The Isa
From unspoilt wonders, to a world heritage listed site to smoke stacks. That was today's journey.
Being in such an idyllic location we decided to rise early and walk to the top of the plateau overlooking Lawn Hill Gorge and watch the sun rise. It does matter how many times I have watched this golden firey star rise I never seem to get bored of it.
Breaking camp we stopped in at Riversleigh World Heritage Site. I would recite the whole brochure we got as it is an amazingly fascinating place but I will leave to to one of my childhood idols. Sir David Attenborough, said: "Only in one or two places on the surface of our planet, in the course of the last thirty million years, have conditions been just right to preserve anything like a representative sample of the species living at any particular time. Those places are the rare treasure houses of palaeontology. Riversleigh is one of them." Walking past the pale hard limestone rocks with 15 million year old fossils of giant wambat like marsupials with stabbing teeth, huge "big bird"(Dromornithid) that stood over 2.5 metres tall and the 5 metre Baru crocodile it is amazing to think that this barren place was once a rainforest.
We also passed through what was most likely to be our last water crossings as we headed in to the dry country. The Gregory River is part of the reason Riversleigh is one of the richest mammal sites in the world.
We finally reached the Barkly highway, leaving the dirt and rejoining the precession of caravans. Stopping at one of the rest areas there was a large 'Sandalwood tree' in the middle. For those that don't know, this rare tree is called a 'Sandalwood' tree due to the numerous sandals, thongs and shoes dangling from its branches. We did see if we could find a matching thong for Hux, but with none the correct size we decided to donate his single one to the tree. If you need a single size 10 blue thong there is one on the road side stop approximately 100km from Mt Isa.
Reaching Mt Isa, the first thing that you notice well before you actually see the city are the large smokestacks reaching to the sky. The tallest towers over the city, a constant grey cloud emanating from its tip like the slow burning of a cigarette. Next to it is a smaller candy-striped stack, disguising its emissions as a sweet lolypop. The shortest, and most likely the most toxic is sulphuric-acid haze from the phosphate mine.
Next to the ochre-red Selwyn Ranges, on the banks of the Leichhardt River, Mt Isa, or "the Isa" as the locals call it, is the world's largest single producer of copper, silver, lead and zinc in the world. There is no mistaking this as a mining town with every second car a 4WD with bright yellow reflective stripes down the side and a tall flag protruding from the bullbar.
I even contimplated buying a yellow sticker to go on the car as a souvenir but was not sure what Kathy would say so thought better of it.
But this is exactly why we came to The Isa. And to fully experience it we had to go to the pub. Our first stop was the Hotel Isa in the shadows of the smoke stack. Thinking this would be a miners den, we were surprised to see an upmarket hotel full of well dressed families. While we had one of the most fantastic Queensland steaks we decided we needed to find where the 'real men' drank so headed further out of town.
Soon we came across the bleak Barkly Hotel with garish neon XXXX signs which looked a possibility. Entering the front door the first thing you noticed through the cigarette smoke was the number of high visability orange shirts all covered in layers of dust. The only noticeable female was the young pretty bar girl who I am sure would have heard every chat up line imaginable. It is a town where many have come to make their fortune in the mines only to drink much of it away over multiple beers.
In order to get the full experience Hux decided to also partake in multiple beers. With the assistance of XXXX we played pool with two young lads. Despite our poor pool playing, luckily they were each more inebriated than us put together, ensuring we did not embarrass ourselves.
Deciding that we needed to call it a night before we ended up wearing orange shirts we made a quiet exit.
Over the last month we have slept at some fantastic campsites under thousand stars. Tonight we went to bed in the shadow of a thousand lights, this time from the 24 hour mine looking over the City. It was a fitting way to end the night.
