Christmas In Cloncurry

Hi Everyone,

Well here we are another year gone and Joanne and I are well settled in to life in The Curry. We have had a fantastic Christmas and New Year and would like to share some of it with you. We had Nakita come up here for seven days over the Christmas period  and I managed to organize ten days off with public holidays, RDO's and a couple of days annual leave (just can't believe you actually get paid for days off) so our Christmas started off with a trip to Mt Isa to pick Nakita up from the plane. Mt Isa is 119 km west of Cloncurry and is our nearest big centre, it has K Mart, Woolies and Coles and heaps of other speciality shops servicing about 20000 residents. Of course Mt Isa is largely dependent on mining for it's existence and Mt Isa Mines is one of the most productive single mines in world history using figures based on a combined production of lead, silver, copper and zinc. The road trip to and from Mt Isa is very scenic as there is lots of rocky outcrops and rocky low mountain ranges along the way, every time you travel the road you see some thing that you have never noticed before. The picture below is on the outskirts of Cloncurry but is typical of the countryside between here and Mt Isa.                                                                        

Looking east from the airport.

This rock wall is at the airport.

We had a great Christmas lunch followed by a few drinks with our friends Ross and Jana at their daughter and son in law's place. The next day we went for a swim at a place called Fort Constantine, it is a station just to the north of Cloncurry that was named by Ernest Henry in 1866. He had fought in the Crimean war and thought an isolated rocky peak on the property resembled one of the forts of Sebastopol. Anyway we had a top afternoon swimming and a few drinks in the Cloncurry River.


Joanne with Ross and Jana in the background.

Nakita keeping an eye on Warren.

Would be a great camping spot when the weather gets cooler.

We took a trip out to our local dam, it is where our water supply comes from, it is a very nice place when it has water in it and would be a great place to camp, but it's not allowed. Cloncurry used to get it's water from bores and wells in the Cloncurry River before the dam was built in 1994 on Chinaman Creek a tributary of the Cloncurry River only 3km from town. It covers about 120 hectares when full and with a series of pumps can be replenished from the river in times of good flow.

One of the locals on the access track to Chinaman Creek Lookout.

Looking east  over the Cloncurry River and Ernest Henry bridge. Cloncurry is in the distance.

Chinaman Creek Dam and Mt Leviathan locally known as Black Mountain because of it's black ore.

Chinaman Creek dam wall.

The picnic area beach and boat ramp.

We went yabbying over Christmas in the dam, here is Ross pulling in a trap.

 We ended up with 20.We put the traps in one afternoon went back the next morning had 10, put the traps back in and came back again in the afternoon for another 10.

Nakita went with us but she wasn't sure about them.

Ross was on cooking duties.

Cannot believe how big these birds are, the locals call them Bush Turkeys but I don't know if that is their real name. They are protected and only indigenous people are allowed to hunt them.

We had a great New Years Eve, we were invited to a fellow trainee's house for the evening. He is on the same shunt team as me and we get along just great.Here are some photo's of the night.

Joanne and I with Emma. Joanne and Emma work together.

Julie with Emma and her partner Gavin who is Julie's brother.

Gavin and Emma. Gavin is an advanced trainee driver.

This is Jeff he is hilarious, Jeff is a Train Driver. We have to learn from him!!!!

This is Dave and Keithie. Dave is a train driver with 30years experience and Keithie is an advanced trainee with Gavin.

This is Nathan who is on the same team with me. They have had to many Black Russians. Nathan's partner is Julie.

Cassie started the same time as Nathan and I, she was a cane train driver in Mackay.

Here's Jeff again, he's a mad bugger.

I hope you enjoy our second Blog and we will bring more to you soon. We had an excursion to Karumba just recently and we will bring that to you shortly.

Bye for now.

Joanne and Paul.