249 kms / 3 hrs 147 kms / 2 hrs

We left the caravan park around 9:30am and went to the School of the Air Mt Isa. It was really interesting watching a short DVD on how they run the school and we saw some of the kids from the largest property (which was 220,000,000 acres!). They teach approx. 160 children from a radius of 500km to the North, South, East & West. The children are on air with a teacher for 30 mins a day, 4 days per week with a maximum of 10 children per session. They are also able to learn how to play the violin (over the air!) and participate in Scouts of the Airs. They also participate in the Rock Mime eisteddfod which they learn over the air and then the week before the performance they all come together so they can practice together. All the students in the same areas get together regularly for a week to participate in things which they are unable to do over the air. We then walked around the school and saw the different work of arts the kids have completed and pictures of the kids and each family has a canvas with a picture of what their property is. We then were able to sit in an on air class. It was interesting listening to the kids and teacher explaining the class over the air. One of the girls sounded very cheeky and corrected the teacher when he made an error.

We then took the kids back to the family fun park and the water park is under construction but they had fun in the large park which had some great equipment. We left Mt Isa around 1pm. We refuelled at Cloncurry then continued to McKinlay.

McKinlay is famous from Crocodile Dundee as that is where they filmed part of the movie. Following the success of the movie the pub was renamed the Walkabout Creek Hotel as that is the pub from the movie and they also filmed in McKinlay library (which is the smallest public library in QLD) which was Never Never Safari Tours Office of Mick 'Crocodile' Dundee.

We spoke to some miners who were having a drink at the pub then took the kids to the park and met a lovely family from QLD. We went back to the caravan and had a lamb salad for dinner then played some games with the kids.

Roger wanted to do some more driving in the middle of the night as we are driving into a strong head wind at the moment, which is making it a long driving day. So we had a few hours sleep then left the rest area at 11:30pm and drove 147 kms arriving at Wanora Downs Rest Area at 1:30am. We saw lots of big kangaroo's (but again no close calls), some foxes, a wild pig and some piglets.