It has been a huge year for Mount Isa's Underground Hospital Museum and volunteers are expecting another big one in 2022.
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The heritage-listed facility was built for the possibility of Japanese bombing in the Second World War but now is one of Mount Isa's premier tourist attractions.
The Underground Hospital and Museum has experienced a busier tourist season than normal this year, with Australians choosing to visit their own backyard.
After closing down in 2020 due to COVID, their 2021 visitor numbers were up 25pc on their 2019 numbers, amounting to over 7400 visitors for the year.
That was despite the fact that during the busiest time of year for tourists, it was forced to undertake essential maintenance to replace the timber in the Underground Hospital tunnels, having to replace the original gidgee posts, sourced from Mount Isa's underground mine in 2001 with new Oregon timber fixed to the sets.
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The museum closed on October 1 for the hot months and Underground Museum volunteer coordinator Erica Shaw said they would be taking advantage of the closedown to do more work around the facility.
"We have to prepare for the rain, we strip out all our linen to make sure they all get laundered and ready and everything needs to be catalogued which involves photographing everything and putting it into a database," Ms Shaw said.
"We also do maintenance like painting and cleaning out gutters and gardening - we've got four enormous loads of mulch if anyone would like to come and spread it."
Ms Shaw said that although the official reopening was April 1 they might reopen a little earlier and capture some of the early tourist market and maybe entice locals as well.
"We're hoping to be able to do an open day for locals so they can have a look before tourists come to town and then when they have family and friends come to visit, they will bring them here," she said.
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