Day 42- Mount Isa

Bloody great noisy garbage truck woke us all early this morning. Which was a good thing cos i wanted to get some sunrise photos from the lookout. So up and out the door super quick. It was still early false dawn but even then i think i missed the best photos by a half hour. The mine lights were all on and the black ore hills were just sparkling but there was too much ambient light to get a good shot. Tempted to try again tomorrow but i'll see how sunset goes instead. The full moon looked amazing. And we are 1860km from Sydney and 1307km to go to Darwin. Pity we can't fly as the crow does!

Got back from the lookout and had a slow breakfast and did the blog etc. Tim made some more icecream orange & mint sorbet. I had a webchat with Nardia and then we headed the 20km out to Moondarra Dam for a picnic and a look around. Not as big a dam as i had imagined but nice. Lots of ski boats and fisherfolk out there being a long weekend but there are a lot of BBQ and picnic areas and we found a table by the swimming section of the dam.

The boys had fallen asleep while we drove around and looked at the area. We almost went 4WDing as we headed up a dry rocky river bed to see what was up there! Got a bit stuck so had to turn back. Signs everywhere for crocodiles and the mozzies that have hit town with some disease (can't remember the name! but we are being careful anyway). So we left them to nap while we sat and had a drink and some cheese and biscuits. But the noise of kids playing soon woke them and they were into the food.

Jordy was keen to play and he is so funny. Not at all shy and he just wanders up and says "you wanna play with me?" First kids he asked were two older boys about 11ish and they just ignored him. Not at all bothered he headed to the next lot of kids to try again.

Darcy stole Tim's hat and walked around pointing at the galahs and dragonflies and smiling like a crazy man. There was a kite's nest right down low in the tree near the picnic table and he flew all around the hills but i was too slow to get a good in-focus photo of him.

Back to camp... started to sort things out for our departure tomorrow. Did some washing. The kids played in the personal playground! I took the boys for a little walk around the park. Jordy played the San Fransisco game on the computer with grandma and then had a swim.

Corned silverside with white sauce!!!! and potato and vegies for dinner. Darcy ate twice as much as i thought he would (minus the white sauce). They played throw and fetch for far too long and faught going to sleep until far too late!

We are off to Camooweal and we cross the border tomorrow into the Territory. We are stopping at a free camp and so will not have reception until the following day (actually, the following day might even be optimistic cos that will be around Barkly and i'm not sure what their internet reception will be like.)