The Hills Family of Mt Isa: 2010

May was celebrated with two birthdays (old and young!) and a few exploration trips! I get very bored!! There was Go Karts, a Circus and Monster Trucks, Rain and Mothers Day! It really was a busy month. On each of these ‘events’ I tried my damnedest to take the prize winning photos for the 2010 Mount Isa Show. Well I certainly had a great time trying.

Go-Karts – Queensland State Dirt Championship

I am not entirely sure who the Go-Kart system works – so I apologise for not knowing the importance of this event. However – it was advertised in all local media – so we went along, if nothing else but as an excuse to get out of the house for a couple of hours. It was a bit of fun and we even saw a ‘crash’!!!

RED……….. AMBER……….

GREEN……………….Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Oh oooo – bit of a bingle…………..

and two are out!! The fellow with his head down was winning. The fellow standing up is he cause of the accident!!

All over Red Rover – well for one race at least!

Trip to May Downs

Early in the month we had the house “Bug Sprayed” - which meant for at least half the day we all had to vacate the house. The kids went off to their respective schools and Graham went to work – so what about me?! Well, I drove out on a dirt road for 30kms or so to a property called “May Downs”. This property consists of approx 234000 hectares, and operates a breeder herd of around 9000 head of Brahman Cross cattle. (taken from www.maydownsstation.com.au/w_MD/about_md.htm) It also has TRILOBITE fossils!!

So off I went!!

On the way to May Downs, I spotted Skippy!!

Hey? What was that? Oh, Hay! Not Hey!

Old fence posts for the cattle to stare at!

Braham Cattle

This letter fellow would NOT move! I had to drive around him!

This one would not move either!!

The road to the Trilobites.

Some of the Flora on the property

A really WEIRD grasshopper thing!

I believe these are “Cambrian Trilobites”. That is from the Cambrian period – being the first geological period of the Palaeozoic Era dating from 0.3 million to 1.7 million years ago (give or take a year or two!) For more information on the Cambrian Period see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian

This is where you will find the “Cambrian Trilobites” if you look down!

The road to the Trilobites

Ant hill in front of a Ghost Gum (maybe – might be a river gum?)

I call it “Turtle Rock” but someone else in the family reckons it looks like a gopher?

The mine in town

Just to the left is the mine

In the river bed not far from the mine were quite a few of these "shelter or storage” dugouts.

I really must find out what they were for. Each one is made of two pieces of curved corrugated tin, surrounded by soil and sandbags. Over the years the sandbags have disintegrated, but are still solid. Inside each one is a wooden pallet.

An old Aussie Outhouse – just up from the shelter thingys in the riverbed.

It’s not the redback’s you should be worried about – it’s the sharp edges on the seat I would think?!

Mother’s Day Morning Tea at Kindy

On the Friday before Mother’s Day (May, 7) Emi’s kindy (Estelle Cardiff Kindergarten) held a Mother’s Day Morning Tea. The kids sang some songs and presented the mothers with a little gift of a photo in a paddle pop stick frame – very cute! It was wrapped in paper thoughtfully and creatively designed by the children.

Cooper and I go exploring

One day Cooper and I went exploring in a southerly direction from Mount Isa. We drove for about an hour or so and found an interesting out crop of rocks. While we were exploring, we found some ‘pirate treasure’ (a big blue esky, which we later found was full of interesting documentation for all and sundry!)

An interesting tree on the way!

Not far past here a wanker speeding past in the opposite direction went off the road and a flicked up a huge rock (ok – so it was just bigger than a pebble!) into my windscreen and created a huge (oh – alright – it was about 1” in diameter) hole/crack just under my line of vision!! BUGGER!

See – it’s an interesting rocky outcrop!

There goes my little explorer, Cooper

Yay – made it to the top!!

Ohhh – pirate treasure!

Turns out – it has been there about 10yrs or so – it was dutifully handed into the local coppers!

View from the top.

Dad’s Birthday

In the middle of May, Graham has another birthday. This year for something a little different I got the kids to make the cakes. That is – I made “Ice Cream Cakes”, put cake mix into flat bottomed ice cream cones and cook for a short period in the oven – then I got the kids to decorate them! They had so much fun.

Everyone working very hard to decorate the cakes that they will ultimately demolish later!!

Great Job Jess!! :}

Keep Going Coop!

Wow, Emi – they look great!

TaDa!

Oh Jess! You clever girl!!

Ok – everyone blow out the candles!!

Foggy Rain in the Isa

In the middle of May – the most unusual thing happened!! It rained! Well for Mount Isa this is weird – especially considering the cloud was so low it covered the hills in town! It looked incredibly cold and miserable – in fact we were all still in t-shirts and shorts!!

I took this lot with my phone camera – then we came home and got my other camera. In the 15mins that took – the cloud lifted and the effect was not so striking, but still amazing

This is the tower on top of the hill just outside of town.

Townsite blurred by cloud cover – not smelling smoke that you see coming from the stacks!!

No – not falling over while I take the photo – just trying to be arty!

Just one of the caves over the gully from the hill I was on!

Low cloud!

Some pretty native flowers on the hill

Circus is in Town

Towards the end of May Lennon Bros Circus came to town. It was very exciting and although some people disagree with the use of animals in a circus – our kids loved it. There was lions, monkeys, camels, dogs and horses. There was one scare when the man on the “wheel of death” nearly fell off (about 5m high) but he recovered with much display of checking his tights, and went on with the show! Sadly, due to copyright concerns, we were not allowed to take photos – so I only got a couple!!

Before the show started!

ROAR!! They were almost so cute – rubbing up again the cage like cats do to your legs!

Emi having a great time!

Everyone is having fun!

Monster Trucks Come to Town

For a couple of years now Cooper has been totally enamoured by MONSTER TRUCKS!!! So, when it was advertised they were coming – we just had to go. For a week before their performance the trucks were in various places around town, each day we had to drive around to find where they were hiding. The following images are from the week before the show.

OUTBACK THUNDAAAAAA!!!

Emi getting cosy!!

Don’t let go Daddy!!

Tyres are bigger then Emi!!

Looking from the back wheel into the drivers seat!

Shiny Shockers!!

RAPTORS REEEEEVVVEEENGEEEEEEEEEEE!

SCOOOOOOOBYYYYYY DOO!

Cooper’s birthday

On May 31 Cooper turned 3!! He has become a wonderful little boy with a huge sense of humour and good will, peppered with a strong sense of determination and wilfulness!! We had a little something on the Monday of his birthday – he opened his presents and had some small cupcakes in celebration. But on the Wednesday, I made a Spongebum Squawpants ( more commonly known as SpongeBob Squarepants) Cake and took it to his “school” (Daycare) to share with his friends – and therefore, hopefully, I would not need to finish off the cake!!!