Dam…this is cool!

Man, it’s HOT!! Not even the end of winter and it’s 35 degrees+ every day. You feel like your skewered on a rotisserie in a convection oven. Why Clem Walton Park? Because it fronts onto Coella Dam – lots and lots of swimmable lake and plenty of shade. Talk about the nick of time.

A ‘pretend’ locked gate and a short drive found me a nice shady spot tucked away in the corner but right on the water. Ooooh, staying somewhere for a few days because I CAN. Mt Isa was no holiday, and THIS felt like it for the first time in a long time. I slept in the next morning and as I staggered to the kitchen, looked out and there were maybe 100 pelicans and 100 cormorants jostling for position a spit from my window. Clearly someone had distributed the breakfast menu, as they were not bothered by the curious onlookers just a few metres away. This overture would be repeated every morning at the same time.

The days were still and the breeze, fickle. Even the freshwater crocs couldn’t keep me out of the water. Every hour or so after lunch was a trudge to the boat ramp, walk in up to my neck and a cap full of water over my head ….and repeat. Unlike the big cities, when the sun finally disappeared, the temp drops almost immediately and by twilight, all is forgiven.

On one of these trudges, I befriended a couple of young guys who had set up even closer to the water. It turns the eldest brother is something of a celebrity. Meet Neil Wilkinson, starring next year in Season 2 of Outback Crystal Hunters, on the National Geographic Channel. He’s carved out a career mining for crystals around Queensland. The largest he’s discovered weighed 150 kg. It took 3 days to dig it out and six hours to drag it to the truck. But the bread and butter are the little tikes.

Over the years, Neil has built up a catalogue of locations. Even then, a couple of days digging could yield no result, which can get camera crews just a little tetchy. In fact it’s more likely due to the amount of time taken to do the ‘set’ shots – walking, talking etc. You can see why some of these prospectors always manage to ‘find’ the gold in 45 minutes of air time. Time is money people.

Not that I’m a bird for bird’s sake guy, but they do add colour and movement to what can be a very forbidding landscape. I’d heard that this is budgie country and was pointed in the direction of a small stand of trees. “They come in on sunset” he offered. Budgies are quick and nervous. There’s no inching ever closer, because they’re here and gone in seconds. Finding a nesting Mum and a youngin’ was my best hope.

Oh, they’re all the same colour in the wild. If you see a different colour in the outback, they’ve escaped.

You can’t have a dam without a damn wall, and I got a thing for ’em. I could have walked around a kilometre, but Neil, who just happened to have a tinnie, kindly offered himself as Coella Lake Tourist Officer. So, at a respectable hour on a Sunday morning we set off to explore. Coella Dam was specifically built to service the town of Mary Kathleen during it’s mining heyday. And it’s no small deal. Apparently, there’s serious money in uranium.

Neil dropped a line in while I clambered up the steps to the top, just to see what was the other side. When I climbed back in he said, “Let’s find some crocs.” How could I refuse? Now freshwater crocs are shy, retiring reptiles, so we weren’t sure how close we could get. But, as luck would have it, we spotted two on a bank, and in no particular hurry to make good their escape. Neil killed the motor and we drifted closer.

Reacquainted with ‘old friends’, not seen since our time in Kakadu. It was comforting to know that they would swim away from our tinnie and not try to to take a chunk out of it(and us).

We went ‘shopping’ for others, but they took to the water when we were still a long way off. It was a great experience to be off dry land and we were back within the hour. The next day I found the perfect excuse to run the car air-con, something called the Ballara Mine Trail. And that was some adventure.