@ Mt ISA

Hi all, still in Mt Isa and will spend one more rest day here tomorrow and will leave on Wednesday morning.  Really enjoying the rest and just eating, a little reading and doing nothing really! We are spending up a storm, since Neil has acquired 2 more solar panels we decided to invest in another battery pack and managed to pick up one from KMart - it is 11,000 amp thingy!  twice the size of our existing panel and will take longer to charge but that doesn't matter as we know you can still use it when it is only half charged ... there is so much sun out here it seems silly to waste it!

So due to the little billabong beside our campsite there seems to be an abundance of birds and we noticed that there is a kookaburra flittering around and it is slightly different to the east coast one ... it has more blue on it and from what we can see is that there is blue on its' back and it is more obvious when it is flying ...

 across the billabong is a gum tree and it has a nest on it and that belongs to a kite and I managed to get this photo early in the morning while it is nesting in it ...

 so while Neil is out buying elecronics I am out getting food supplies for the next 10 days (10 brekkies, 7 dinners, and snacks).  We worked out the cycle days from here to Tennant Creek and have allowed for the worst case scenario ... 10 days, maybe we can do it in 9 or possibly 8 but that depends on the winds!  Included in the 10 days is a rest day at Camooweal.  So here are some photos of our food ...

included are 12 packets of Koutas food and his dry biscuits.  What is not shown here is another 500g jar of honey (Neil did very well in budgeting his last honey but he doesn't think he can repeat that action again so soon!), 9 small apples, 4 carrots, our usual yoghurt and margarine, a loaft of bread, a left over block of cheese and a bar of chocolate and a 20 pack of Freddo frogs - these won't melt as the nights are very cold and will be our fridge!  So quite a bit of food but they all pack up small with the bulk of it going in my 2 food panniers and a bit at the back pannier and the odds and ends in Neils bags.  

We have sorted our junk out and are sending quite a bit home tomorrow by post, namely clothes and electrical gear, maps and just stuff we don't use anymore - like power cord now we have so many solar panels!