Mt Isa

Mt Isa is like no other city I’ve been to. This is the view coming in to town.

The smoke stack and buildings you see are the mine. And the town goes right to the edge of the mine.

Here’s the view from the lookout in the middle of town. You can see how close the mine is.

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Further views of the mine, panning to the right. I can’t help but wonder what controls would be in place if this were proposed under today’s planning laws.

I spent a couple of days in Mt Isa. More than I had planned, but I arrived on the weekend needing a wheel alignment and new tyre, so I needed to wait until Monday.

Big shout out to the friendly folk at Mt Isa Community Church – they do Cafe Church on a Sunday night – dinner and chat at round tables, then the service. They were very welcoming.

While filling in time I checked out the lookout. My first visit was very quick – I didn’t see the ‘no caravans’ sign and it was a tight squeeze to turn around and get out of there. On Monday morning I went up again, but at 6am before any other traffic – or so I thought. When I got up there I found three guys had arrived before me – they were painting the water tower. Now if you’ve known me for any length of time, you’d realise that I love silo and water tower art. I’ve always said that if I was lucky enough to be where one was being painted I would just camp there until it was finished and see the artwork created before my eyes. So this was bittersweet. I was so excited to be there, chat to the artists (a group called Rhythmicolour Collective from the Sunshine Coast) about how they work and see them in action. But I was quite sad that I didn’t have the time to be able to stay and see it finished. This was the third week of a three week project, with a grand opening scheduled of Friday night, so the pressure was on to finish in time. It was a busy design, with much done but much still to do. Here’s some photos of the work to date.

It was such a privilege to be here to see this being done.

Now to deal with the tyre problem. Tyres were no issue, but a wheel alignment was hard to come by – all but one of the 6 machines in town were broken, and I was originally advised the nearest one would be at Tennant Creek! Thankfully the Ford dealership had a working machine. Nothing happens quickly, so after an early morning start for tyres and alignment, I was finally on my way at 2pm!