MOUNT ISA
Calling Code: +61
Best-known for its modern mining operations, Mount Isa also offers a taste of unexpected adventure for travellers. Fishermen, birdwatchers and outdoor types can get their fill in and around Queensland's largest Outback town, population 22,000.
Prospector John Campbell Miles was the first to get excited here, when he stumbled across a silver-lead-zinc outcrop by the banks of the Leichhardt River in 1923. Some 500 claims were soon lodged and this became Australia's first company town, with one in five working for the mine. This multicultural town has residents from some 60 ethnic backgrounds.
Dominated by a 265m exhaust stack, The Isa now produces the world's largest amounts of lead and silver as well as massive quantities of copper and zinc. The city is thought to be named after John's sister Isabella or else it may be a corruption of Mount Ida, a Western Australian goldfield.
Outback At Isa is Mount Isa's biggest tourism attraction. The $12 million complex hosts a range of attractions including an underground tour of a working mine, an amphitheatre, gift shop, park, caf, theatrette, and the Sir James Foots building with displays of Indigenous settlement and local mining history.
Next door to the complex is the Riversleigh Fossil Display Centre and Laboratory. John Scanlan gives tours of the laboratory where visitors can find out about the discovery of fossils in the field to the laboratory processing and then museum display. At the centre you can walk through interactive displays with animals, vegetation and waterfalls from the three time periods preserved at Riversleigh, ranging from 25 million to 50,000 years ago. The actual fossil fields are 250 kilometres north-west of Mount Isa.
Mount Isa was home to one of the fiercest Aboriginal groups, the Kalkadoons. To learn about them and their culture, visit the Kalkadoon Tribal Centre and Culture-Keeping Place, next door to the tourist information centre on Marian Street.
The School of the Air, Royal Flying Doctor Museum, City Lookout and Underground Hospital and Museum are other popular Mount Isa tourist attractions.
If you're keen to cast a line and do some fishing, pit your skills against barramundi, sooty grunter, sleepy cod and red claw crayfish at Lake Moondarra, just 15km north of the city.
For birdwatchers, the area around Camooweal, a former droving centre, is teeming with 52 species of birdlife close to the Georgina River. The town is situated 188km west of Mount Isa and is western Queensland's last town, lying just 16km from the Northern Territory border.
A copy of Mount Isa's Mudmaps is essential for those exploring the surrounding district. But before you leave Mount Isa, check out the southern hemisphere's largest rodeo, the 4LM Mount Isa Rodeo which happens annually in early August.
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