Thanks to the wonders of Facebook, I knew that the Mercer family were headed our way. We had met up with them a few times along this trip, at Karajini, De Grey's campground and Darwin.
We arranged to meet up in Mt Isa, and then something extraordinary happened. Another travelling family (The Woods) caught up with us and joined us at the caravan park and for dinner too! The Mercers were driving from Cairns to Darwin. We were going from Alice Springs to Cairns, and the Woods were going from Darwin to Townsville... And we ALL passed ways at Mt Isa!! What a fluke!
The kids had a ball in the pool, catching up with friends. Kellie organised a minibus pick-up to take us to the pub for dinner, and we women-folk were greatly amused when the men all turned up wearing basically the same outfit. The pub had a fantastic kid's room, with a supervisor, sign-in sheet and all. We were even given those vibrating dinner thingies so they could contact us if the children needed us. Bonus!
It was a fun evening, but we all parted ways the next morning.
We hung around Mt Isa for a second night, as we wanted to do the Hard Times Underground Mine Tour.
We highly recommend this tour for families. It was great fun! We were all issued with overalls, helmets and boots, and got to go deep down underground in the miner's elevator. Our tour guide was just wonderful with the kids, which was great because Angus was a little anxious after his experience at the Beaconsfield mine exhibition in Tassie. He was in a tunnel with his head in a reconstruction of the small cage that the trapped miners lived in for 2 weeks, right when another exhibit gave an almighty and unexpected explosion. Poor little guy. He's been a bit iffy about going underground since then, but our guide Bob was so lovely and Angus really enjoyed it all in the end. We got to see, hear, feel and even operate the massive mining machinery, though I think the children enjoyed having morning tea in the crib room the best!
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