SUNDAY JUNE 30 PICNIC BY THE LAKE

Aidan was leading the Baptist Church Worship Service this morning so he left early on his motor bike.  He was practising with the band.

We came later in the ute with Peta, who was in charge of the computer and projection.  The visiting preacher from Bundaberg gave us a 42 minute sermon. The church seems to be very alive and active.

We came home for lunch and had a chance to see the work on the house which we finished after dark last night.

After a lunch that finished off the lovely pork roast dinner from last night, we worked solidly through till 5pm when Dave and Angie arrived.

We love the street number that Aidan devised and attached today.

We all drove out to the town dam at Lake Moondarra where there were extensive picnic facilities.  The Skinners provided a great picnic tea and we enjoyed chatting with Bronwyn, David, Jessica, Sam, Marietta and the other Sam.  They set up a slack wire walk across the old volley ball court.

It was cool but not cold.  The weather was a bit too windy for comfort today but the breeze dropped at sundown.  A very enjoyable evening.  We said goodbye to Dave and Angie and the young ones came to the house for a social evening.

SATURDAY JUNE 29 DAVE HARTLEY AGAIN

Aidan had an all day seminar at his church today, so Malcolm and Peta went to Bunnings for more paint and timber.  Bronwyn and Jessica called in and invited us to go to the local lake for a picnic dinner tomorrow night.

Dave and Angie Hartley arrived in town and set up in the Sunset Caravan Park.  Dave came around for a chat and we arranged for them to join us all at the picnic.

Peta went off to play hockey and referee for a couple of hours and Aidan worked on the cladding after 3pm.  We got quite a lot done again today.

We watched the Wallabies beat the Lions in a game with too many penalties.  The Tour de France started tonight.  Aidan stayed up and watched the chaotic finish.

FRIDAY JUNE 28 AIDAN'S NEW JOB

Another day of good progress on the renovations.  Aidan came home from work in the middle of the day to change for a friend's funeral.  At work he handed in his resignation in order to take up a new job in the same company at Longreach, starting late July.

He had another go at the cladding job working till 6:30pm

THURSDAY JUNE 27 THE ARMY HOUSEHOLD

All day on our own today and keeping busy.  We did not leave the property today or yesterday.  Aidan returned this afternoon and picked up Peta from the airport.  She brought home her certificate of acceptance into the Northern Surveillance Unit and has managed to avoid going to Kapooka for training camp.

They went out for band practice, getting ready for Sunday Church, and brought home pizzas  for our dinner.

The mornings have been a little cloudy so we had a beautiful outback sunrise yesterday. Here is a photo taken from the front yard:

And this one through the back door.

Mount Isa is a pretty good place to be at this time of year.

WEDNESDAY JUNE 26 HOME ALONE

Aidan caught a plane to Mornington Island with his Health Team but was affected by the combination of a cold and the flight, so had to spend some time in the sick bay.  He will be back tomorrow night, just before Peta.  We worked all day on small jobs making satisfactory progress.  Malcolm watched Queensland embarrass NSW in the State of Origin and Dustin Brown embarrass Lleyton Hewitt at Wimbledon.

The front yard is the focus of our painting projects.

The weather is very pleasant. Cool early and warm during the day.  Not missing Sydney's weather.

TUESDAY JUNE 25 ROBYN'S BIRTHDAY

Peta was picked up early by the local army Warrant Officer and flew into Cairns for three days of Army Reserve training.  Aidan went to work by motor bike and left the car for us to shop at Bunnings. Lyn took the opportunity to wash our clothes and water the dry gardens with the outflows.  We drove the Nissan ute into town and found our way around Mt Isa by trial and error.  Aidan showed us some shortcuts on the map when he came home from work.  Mainly sanding and painting today.  Malcolm's eye was still sore and unwilling to cope with the bright sunlight here.  Lyn cooked corned beef with white sauce and vegetables for dinner.

The kitchen needs some finishing touches but is looking very snazzy.

The bathroom has a waterfall type of shower rose, which we like, and it even appears to be see-through if photographed from the right angle.

MONDAY JUNE 24 LONG WEEKEND IS OVER

The local Show was packed up and gone,  probably heading for Townsville next weekend.  Aidan and Peta both left early for work.  Malcolm spent most of the day painting the internal doors. Lyn spent her time cleaning up around the grounds.  The back open shed and the carport were inches deep in dust.  She sorted all the tools and supplies and laid them out beautifully so they were now easier for us to find as we needed them.  We had a pleasant break at lunchtime watching Seachange on 72.  No better TV series has been made.

Aidan and Peta were amazed to see what Lyn had done when they came home.

Aidan reinstalled the bathroom door for the third and final time.  It was a very slow job, but the result was worth it.

Peta made delicious tacos for dinner and cooked a chocolate cake for dessert with ice cream.  We have eaten better on this holiday than ever before in our lives.

SUNDAY JUNE 24 SUPERMOON

All four of us went to 9am Service at the Baptist Church.  They had a good group of 7 people to lead the music and the pastor preached for 40 minutes on Caleb and Joshua.  We met a visitor from Germany called Toby.  His home is between Munich and Ulm.  The congregation was about the same size as our Marsden Road church and about 30 of them turned up at the Irish Club for communal lunch.  We came back to the house and worked all afternoon sanding, painting, installing cladding and gardening.  Bronwyn and Jessica called in again with some dateballs for afternoon tea.

The weather has been perfect for outside work. Mornings are a little under 10 degrees and afternoons around 22.  At 6pm we remembered the full moon and a google search showed it would rise at 4:50 in Sydney. Pity the sky was overcast there. We hopped in the car and drove to the Lookout just in time to see it appearing on the horizon in a cloudless sky. We have had no rain on our trip for the last two weeks.

 The self-focussing camera is always confused trying to focus on the moon, but the colours in the sky were magnificent.  We say the blue is caused by the shadow of the earth. A sight never to be forgotten.  As predicted, the moon appeared huge, but a five cent coin at arm's length was actually bigger.

Mount Isa was looking at its best as the town and mine lights came on.

Back home again and Peta served us a royal feast.  Malcolm had a foreign body in his eye which refused to come out,  so Aidan took him to Emergency at Mt Isa Hospital where a specialist removed three tiny objects and supplied antibiotics. 

SATURDAY JUNE 22 RENOVATING

Breakfast at MacDonalds, where Aidan met us after a 15k run with his club, followed by a day of alternating between going to Bunnings and renovating. The front fence is painted and the front of the house is half painted.

The bathroom door was taken off and we spent many hours sanding it to a state where it would accept new paint.  Aidan  now finds he has a cold.  Malcolm and Aidan worked on the cladding.  It needs a finishing strip across the top.  Peta cooked us another lovely meal.

FRIDAY JUNE 21 MOUNT ISA

We woke up at Cloncurry at about 6am and watched the red desert scenery to Duchess.

This was the first time we had been to Duchess, but the train only stopped for a minute, and there seemed to be nothing other than a hotel nearby.

As the train approached Mount Isa the earth became greyer.  It was an hour late arriving, but Aidan and Peta were waiting for us and ferried us to their house.

But on the way we stopped at The Coffee Club for morning tea.  After we unpacked, it was time to get oriented in the house.  No shortage of projects to get stuck into and we are rearing to go.
Aidan and Malcolm went to Bunnings twice to gear up for the tasks ahead, then Lyn and Malcolm gave the front fence a first coat of stain.  The fence was positioned by a mate of Aidan's who is a surveyor and it is perfectly plumb and straight.  We hope to have the street view ready for Google maps by the time we leave.
Peta's Mum Bronwyn and sister Jessica called in after we had a delicious meal cooked by Peta.  Today was a great start to our twelve days in Mount Isa.

THURSDAY JUNE 10 THE INLANDER

The train was not leaving till 12:40, so we walked down to the Strand in beautiful weather.  We came to the Anzac Park entrance.

The fountain had more jets than you could poke a stick at, but one of them was blocked so Lyn did poke a stick in it and got it working.  Ms Fixit.

 We found more war memorials.  This one was to commemmorate the Battle of the Coral Sea, which Townsville was heavily involved in as a supply centre.  It was opened by Kim Beasley and George Bush Senior's secretary.

There are two kilometers of beach along here and all the land for 50 meters back is public park.  No huge high rise blocks.  We loved the children's water park.  Lyn tried out the cannons.

Once they turned on the taps we stood well clear.

That big blue bucket tipped over when it was nearly full.

We found Townsville's own "Little Mermaid" but it was not attracting any attention.  Lyn gave it some sympathy.

There were many curtain fig trees along the walkway and this one was called the tree of peace.

Pity about it being a strangler fig.  As we walked back to Classique B&B we had a good look at the decorations on the town's water tank.

We walked to the station and found that the Inlander had a loco, a luggage van, two twin sleeper vans, one single sleeper van, a buffet car and a sit-up-all-night van.

Our cabin was nearly the same as the Queenslander from Brisbane to Cairns, but there was no bag of goodies, no dressing gown and slippers, etc.  The service was poor and the evening meal pretty awful.
We did get a voucher for a free cup of tea and milo.  The beds were comfortable and we slept well. It was much cheaper than the other trains and was still good value. 

WEDNESDAY JUNE 19 (CONTINUED) MUSEUM

Next door to the Aquarium was the North Queensland Museum.  The biggest feature here was the story of the wreck of the Pandora, which was the ship sent out to retrieve the mutineers from the Bounty.  It sank on the reef near Cape York in 1789 after picking up Bounty crew in Tahiti.
Notice that Pandora on the bowsprit is holding a box. We knew the story of Prometheus and Pandora from our time in Gothenburg.  The accused sailors were manacled into a wooden box on the deck and were only let out as the ship sank.  The full size partial replica was very impressive.

As usual the model gave the best photo.

That took 7000 working hours to construct.  A vast amount of money has been invested in gathering pieces from the underwater wreck and displaying them together with reenactments in this museum. A lot of donations have been given as this is one of the most historical shipwrecks in Australia.

We enjoyed the natural history displays, especially the tawny frogmouth.  There was also a whole room of visual illusions based on drawings from the University of Kyoto, Japan.  Here are some samples.

This one gives a very strong third dimensional effect.

This one starts to move as you watch it.

This one has two spirals that are both the same colour but the purple one has blue stripes across it and the orange one has yellow stripes across it.  You wont believe they are the same colour until you make a small slot in a piece of paper and compare the colours without distracting blue or yellow crossings.

WEDNESDAY JUNE 19 AQUARIUM

We walked down Sturt St to the Strand where the War Memorials were, near the other marina.  We found a map of the world on the ground with 72 numbers, one for each of the places where Australian forces have served.

Nearby were 11 memorials for some of the 50 Victoria Cross veterans.

We had intended to walk the 2km along the beachfront on the Strand and back again, but Malcolm started to get some cramps in his left calf, so we went straight to the Reef Tropical Aquarium.  There was a huge display of hundreds of species of reef inhabitants, the best known of which we saw immediately. No one goes past Nemo. He is the clown of the show.

The Humbug fish was easy for us to identify from our lolly sucking childhoods.

We took a movie of the slow moving crown of thorns seastar. Here he is still.

We do have him on movie as well.

The colours of the coral were naturally more impressive in this unnatural display.

We watched three different presentations:  seastars and shellfish,  sharks,  and turtles in the "hospital". We learnt that the main reasons turtles were brought in for treatment were: lung infections, bowel blockages (often from fishing lines and plastic items) and injuries caused by boat propellers.
This is Phil, who has been in hospital for one year today and is ready for release.

The staff were very dedicated and they were proud of their solar panelled roof which had won awards.

There were volunteers everwhere we went willing to answer our questions.

TUESDAY JUNE 18 (CONTINUED)

Adam threw some wholemeal bread in the water and a school of batfish came to the back of the boat and were handfed.

Adam gave us flippers, snorkel and a noodle float and helped us into the water.  We practised our mouth breathing and had a wonderful view of the fish and the coral, which is in the world heritage area here.  We anchored close to a secluded beach and waded in to the sand and combed the beach for a while.  Then we returned to a nice morning tea and saw a whistling kite and a sea eagle perform.

Lyn and John were given rods and quickly caught a fish each using garfish strips.

Lyn's catch was identified as a cattle-dog cod, but both fish were too small and were returned.  We were given another go at snorkeling in another spot then Adam sped back to Nelly's Bay and said goodbye at 12:30.  After lunch we walked along the newly constructed coastal boardwalk called the Gabul Way to Geoffrey Bay.  Gabul was the dreamtime serpent who carved out all the offshore islands.

We walked as far as Alma Bay where lifeguards were on duty between the flags. The weather was getting hot so we walked back to the ferry and came "home" to our generously offered afternoon tea with Iva.