A pinch and a punch for the first day of the month. OK, I know a bit corny but hey I am a dad.

 

Sunday is pancake day at the Sunset Top Park, so Jenny headed out to grab a pancake and she came back with a plate full.

 

The plan for the day was to head underground at the Hard Times Underground Mine Tour. 

 

With the Mt Isa Mine no longer doing mine tours, this purpose built tourist mine has taken over.

 

It was constructed to the same design and standards as the normal mine with all the equipment being retired gear from the main mine.

 

The tour guides are all retired miners and ours was Steve.

 

Before heading down, you get to dress up with bright orange paper overalls, an orange hard hat and light and gum boots. We looked like road cones on steroids.

 

After the obligatory shot at the elevator (to sell to us later) we descended down in the elevator to the mine tunnel.

 

Even though it is only 15 metres down, you could have been at any depth as there is no noise from above.

 

It was dark, warm with high humidity similar to a normal mine but apparently the real deal is a lot hotter.

 

Steve took us through the history of Mt Isa mining with the different decades of machinery and techniques.

 

We learnt how to blow a face then got the chance to do some drilling.

 

There was even a front end loader that he fired up and moved around for us. It is extremely loud in the confined tunnels as are all the other machinery demonstrated.

 

The tour finished with a meal in the crib room underground and plenty of stories of Steves times in the mines and the pranks that were carried out.

 

We were taken back to the surface on the back of a Toyota carrier. The tour had lasted 3 hours.

 

It was well worth going on this tour and would recommend it to anyone travelling to Mt Isa.

 

It was time to spend some time above ground and we headed out to Lake Moondarra to have a look and grab some geocaches.

 

Lake Moondarra is the water supply to Mt Isa and the Mine built by the Mine. 

 

As well as providing water, it is a place to go fishing, water skiing, canoeing, 4WDing and of course geocaching.

 

There was plenty of bird life particularly on the 4WD track following the edge of the lake back to town.

 

Tomorrow we continue our travels east.