Wednesday - 1st August

We continued with the mining theme today and went on the bus tour through the Mt. Isa Mine and Smelter complex.  This is a great experience for those that like machinery.  We first were taken around the back of the smelters and an older disused open cut mine, then we travelled back round the front of the complex and to the new open cut, which will eventually be 800 metres deep.  Gigantic excavators were loading ore into equally large ore trucks for transport to the smelters. We then travelled through the smelter/refinery areas, zinc, lead/silver and then copper where we watched copper anodes being poured.Later that evening we returned to the mine to watch a giant crucible of white-hot copper slag being dumped.

Thursday - 2nd August

We had a quiet day today.  We drove out to Lake Moondarra and set our chairs up at the edge and enjoyed a couple of hours reading in the sun next to the blue waters.  Lots of bird life.  I tried my hand at fishing but the closest I got to a fish was a couple of very big barramundi that had died during the recent cold snap and were floating at the water’s edge.