It kicked off on Friday as Cloncurry’s long-awaited C150 celebrations finally got underway.

Cloncurry Mayor Greg Campbell hosted a mayor’s luncheon at a packed Community Precinct on Friday where local historian Shirley Powley gave a rundown of the town’s 150 year history.

MP Robbie Katter noted that Geoffrey Blainey’s history of Mount Isa Mines “Mines in the Spinifex” devotes the first quarter of the book to the discoveries at Cloncurry by Ernest Henry and others.

And Sam Daniels spoke about the importance of agriculture to the region pointing out the importance of Cloncurry as a beef centre and the key role played by the saleyards in moving cattle.

Later that afternoon the streets were closed off for the street parade. 

It was an enormous undertaking and one of the biggest streets I’ve ever seen so big the start of it had lapped the end at the main roundabout in town.

The exhibits were top quality and some were very funny, especially the Cloncurry Hospital crew. Afterwards people hung around for the food and an enjoyable concert by Troy Cassar-Daley and others.

The action moved to Dajarra on Saturday for the rodeo, campdraft and gymkhana.

I took a slight detour to check out the abandoned Kuridala mine before heading to the rodeo.

It’s a lovely bush rodeo and everyone there was having an enjoyable and relaxed time.

I couldn’t relax too much as I still had some driving to do, back to Mount Isa to catch the end of the Mount Isa Fringe Festival.

Organisers had to hastily move the event at late notice to the Civic Centre but it was still a success.

The whole point of a fringe festival is that there something happening wherever you look and Mount Isa managed that in a difficult situation.

The highlight for me was Opera Queensland on Saturday. I am illiterate when it comes to opera but the package they put together was wonderful with the help of the Mount Isa Community Ensembles choir, a great night – Derek Barry