Mount Isa

Made it to Mount Isa and managed to find accommodation which was pretty lucky as the town was almost fully booked for the Rodeo. It was really nice to be in a big town again after being in the outback for a week. Once settled in we got ourselves to the tourist info for information on the forthcoming rodeo which we quite fancied going to. Also bought the obligatory cowboy hats (which william has had on huis head since!) Turns out it is the biggest rodeo in Australia and was on Fri, Sat & Sun. Found out that Sat & Sun were the best day as all the events before that were qualifiers. On the Friday night they had a huge carnival with around 50floats which made their way through the town to the rodeo grounds. They also had lots of fireworks, stalls & show rides. It was a good night.

On the Saturday morning we were up early to make our way to the rodeo grounds to get good seats in the arena. Donned in our cowboys hats, william in his kilt and me in my jeans. We sat with a family we had met on the camp ground which was great. They told us about the events and what was all happening. They were really good company. The arena was massive. We got to see cowboys on bulls and horses, bareback riders on horses, rope & tie, barrel races, steer wrestling and the awesomely hilarious wild horse race. It wasan amazing event where teams of 3cowboys have to catch a wild horse in the arena, saddle it , then one of them has to mount it and ride over the race line to the finish. Soooo funny. The rest of the events were brilliant to watch too. Who knew 8seconds was so long to stay on a bucking bull or horse. Its ages!! The cowboys looked like little puppets being flung about trying to hold on with one hand waiting for the 8second buzzer. It was such a good day we went back on the Sunday for all the finals. It proved to be just as good a day, if not better. We sat with sharon, dave and family along with their friend laboure. Had a few drinks and stayed at night with laboure to watch The Bostocks band play. Had a bit of a dance before heading back to the camp ground. William is in so many photos as the aussies were quite taken with his kilt.

It was a great week and great experience. After sad goodbyes with our new friends we got back on the road again deciding to head back to the East Coast to Townsville.