This morning, I rode the 189km to mt isa and went to the information centre.
There, I purchased a ticket for the Riversleigh Fossil exhibit and the Outback Experience and Mine Tour.
Firstly the outback experience, its a small museum with some videos and rock samples. Quite interesting watching the videos but they don’t sell the DVD so I don’t remember most of it.
Then onto the Riverleigh Fossil museum. This was a typical museum with fossils on display and some re-creations of animals from 10 thousand to 50 million years ago. Its done quite well and the video at the start was also quite interesting explaining the situation that allowed so many animals to be fossilised.
The mine tour was next and although I was 25 mins early, they were waiting for me. I then updated my watch to Queensland time and apologised accordingly. This tour, which was something I was really looking forward to was what has become of the old underground tour. you see, in the olden days when I spent some time at Mt Isa, the underground tour was for older people (18 or over) and I was not old enough. I did the surface tour many times and really wanted to go underground. Well, apparently in the years between, someone got lost on a tour and sued MIM for damages after falling down a hole and breaking a leg. Now, the underground mine tour is in a disused section of the mine and is like an underground museum.
I was very disapointed when I found out about the change but went along anyway. The tour was very informative and really entertaining. I’m so glad I did it and would recommend it to anyone. It was also interesting to see equipment that was in use in the ‘olden days’ as well as some of the stuff they used when I was here 20 years ago.
I also went for a ride to where I used to live when here (My mothers house). Its had some work done although by the look of the yard,not for a long time.
