Mt Isa

 Yesterday, for something completely different, I got up really early and flew away on Outreach.  What was, in fact, different, was that we got back on the plane that night and flew home.  For those of you who don't know, Mt Isa is a mining town, about as far away from a major metropolis as you can get in Australia.  It is just beautiful.  Well, this time of year and for about another month or so.  After that it will get so hot that your eyebrows melt if you walk outside. 

It makes for a hard day and a long day, but it works out to be worth it all in the end.  These photos were taken with my dodgy iphone.  Then it failed .... again!  It is now coping with about 2 hours of operation before it dies completely.  A big pity in Mt Isa, because I was using the Koi Pond app with the little boy we were seeing and it failed before he was done.  I still have a bunch of time on my contract (about 5 months) so it will be a couple of months at least before I am able to get a new one!  I guess I should just break down and buy a new battery.

 Mt Isa was incredibly peaceful.  It was hard to imagine that just on the other side of the world, London was burning with riots; Italy and Greece are fragile and the economy of USA was failing.  We were in the middle of the Outback, looking across hills that people 10 000 years ago were also watching over.  Little has changed in that outlook.  

Rocks out there are red.  The ground is red.  The sand is red.  The trees and spinifex are a grey green, and you never see the vibrant verdant green of Samford.  In a very different way the area is just so alive. 

The flight out was interesting.  We flew on a 737, one of two round trips that plane will take each day.  The flight toward the Isa, was chock a block.  There was not an empty seat on the plane.  Of the people on the plane, Pam and I were two of a very few women on that plane.  The outback of Australia, esp the mining outback is still very very male dominated. 

 The flight back was nearly empty.

Today was hard, only because yesterday was so long.  I was over it.  I was over work.  I was just done.  It is Tuesday.  Lord help anyone, who needs anything, by Friday!