Run 2:01:00 [3] 25.0 km (4:50 / km)
Mount Isa didn't feature in my plans A, B or C for this trip, but I ended up here following the execution of plan D. An aside from this was that I was expecting that, following this trip, Mount Isa would be the largest Australian town I'd never been to. Assuming that I pass through Rockhampton and Gladstone as planned later this week (and further counting the Central Coast as a single metropolitan area), this honour will, I think, fall to either Karratha or one of the Hunter towns (I've been to Newcastle and Singleton, but not in between).
Got some advice from Anthea about tracks on either side of the river on the way down to Lake Moondarra but had trouble picking them up with a few dead ends (plus in a place you're unfamiliar with it's hard to be sure what land is public property and what land isn't), so spent a fair bit of time on the Moondarra road, not too bad on a Sunday morning. Nice to have non-humid conditions for the run, although it's apparent that the airport is a real frost hollow - it was certainly nowhere near 3.4 anywhere that I was. The run was a bit of a struggle as the last few have been; I feel like I'm in the process of fighting off a cold. The last 20 minutes was reasonable though.
I didn't find the Hinze Bog. For those who are too young to remember him, the late, not-especially-lamented (and spectacularly obese) Russ Hinze was a Queensland minister with a penchant for naming things after himself; the Mount Isa council, which was definitely not run by the Nationals, decided to get into the act and named their new public conveniences in his honour. (One wonders what would have happened to all the things named after him had he not died before facing trial; the person who paid the bribe got five years so I think it reasonable to assume he would have been convicted of receiving it).
That set the scene for another long day on the road, with the first stop being Cloncurry. I didn't actually have to venture in there (the Normanton road turnoff is a couple of kilometres before town), but decided to anyway, reasoning that the NT plates on my car made it pretty unlikely I would be recognised. There is a big temperature display outside the Council chambers; it was somewhat ironic that it was reading about as far below the actual temperature as the 1889 reading was above (it was showing 18 and it was actually 24).
I've been reacquainted with one of the drawbacks of a dark-coloured car - birds have trouble seeing it. (Robw will probably recall a previous episode on a trip which was almost as ill-fortuned as this one has been). One managed to get itself very neatly wedged into the front of the car, providing some amusement for the assembled multitude at the next roadhouse as I had to work reasonably hard to pull it out.
Now in Georgetown. This was another long day but should be the last of them, and is my last night in the Outback proper. It will also probably be my last night camping, which is as well because I left my air mattress behind in Darwin - will have to improvise (probably not very well) with a beach towel and whatever else I can find.