DESCRIPTION
Best of Mount Isa Tour:
Our detailed interpretive tour of this amazing outback city starts with it’s discovery by John Campbell Miles in the early twenties and continues along to the present day. We look at the natural fauna of the area and traditional dwellings. We take a sneaky look at the mine before getting a photo opportunity in front of the lead smelter and bore mill. We visit Mount Isa’s train station only metres from the mine and the end of the line for “Progress and Prosper” as the rail line extension to Darwin never eventuated. Before heading back to Outback at Isa we visit Buchanan Park home to Mount Isa’s world famous Rodeo, the biggest Rodeo in the southern hemisphere.
Underground Hospital:
After the bombing of Darwin in 1942, there was a real fear that Mount Isa with its rich mineral resources would be next. Given that Darwin Hospital was also bombed, there was also genuine concern for Mount Isa Hospital. This prompted a discussion between the then regional District Hospital Director and Superintendent of the mines. Their idea for an Underground Hospital quickly became a reality, carved into the hills near the base of the regional hospital. Over a period of 15 weeks, miners drilled, blasted and mucked out a series of four timbered tunnels into the side of the hill.
Tent House
Step inside the heritage-listed Tent House, a solution to the 1930s housing shortage in Mount Isa during the early mining boom years. Find out how a common tent was converted into a Tent House; an adaptation of materials to suit a hot, dry climate.
Beth Anderson Museum
The building currently housing the Beth Anderson Museum has a story of its own. It began life as a hospital in Kuridala, a heritage-listed abandoned mining town in the Cloncurry Shire.
When you are finished sit back and relax on the verandah with a cuppa and Anzac biscuit, included in your ticket.
