Mount Isa Entertainment and Tourist Venues business manager Donna Cole said there was a shortage of experienced tour guides. 

This was alarming considering Mount Isa is in the middle of its peak tourist season. 

The paid positions were for miners who would work during their four-day break, or for retired miners. 

“What we’re looking for are either people who either work in the mines or retirees looking for a part-time job,” she said. 

“People who can give tourists an insight of our underground machinery, and demonstrate how they operate.” 

Ms Cole said the hours were flexible. 

MIETV aimed to run up to five tours a day, but there were now only two un daily. 

There were only five guides involved. 

“People come to Mount Isa because of the mining and for the hands-on experience, and if we can’t offer that they move through,” Ms Cole said. 

Retired coal engineer Rob Kinaston walked through the Hard Times Mine on Thursday.

He loved the tour and recognised most of the machinery from a Melbourne-based mine site he used to work at. 

Mr Kinaston said on the way to Mount Isa he stopped at Cobar, New South Wales, to visit a mine site, but it was closed to tourists. 

 “It was just a hole in the ground,” he said.