Rick and Rae's Travels: Frid, 26th August

We didn't end up looking at much in Mt Isa. It is a strange town in which a lot of the roads seem a bit dangerous. In fact, we saw a major crash during the short time we were there. The people of the town didn't seem very enthusiastic about anything and everything cost a lot of money. Rick wasn't comfortable about the whole place so we left the very next morning. However, the country surrounding Mt Isa is beautiful as you travel through the Selwyn Ranges.

We stopped about 120kms further down the road at Cloncurry and visited the Royal Flying Doctor Museum commemorating the work of Rev. John Flynn and the beginnings of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The initial flight of the first aircraft supplied by Qantas to the RFDS was on 17th of May 1928 to Julia Creek to attend an injured stockman.

While in Cloncurry we ran into a fellow and his wife in a 5th Wheeler who happened to know Wendy and Greg from Bathurst ... it's a small world isn't it!

We had lunch and at about 2:30pm drove into a service station in town to fuel up. While there, two young ladies in their early twenties (and dressed for a night out) walked across the road and approached Rick to ask if we could give them a lift into Mt Isa. Rick was most disappointed that he had to say 'no' as we were headed in the opposite direction. We watched as they walked down the street and approached anyone else who might have been able to give them a lift.

We decided we were going to go to Normanton and then Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria so we left Cloncurry and headed to a free camp 80kms north. We had a pleasant night cooking sausages over the open fire and watching the sun set over the hills in the distance. It was going to be a warm night as it had been over 30 degrees during the day. As usual, we met some lovely people who were also camped for the night.