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Get up close to one of the world’s most significant fossil finds

Riversleigh Fossil Centre

Hard Times Mine Underground Tour

Journey below ground for an attraction unlike any other.

The Hard Times Mine Tour will give you a fascinating insight into Australia’s deepest underground mine network where you’ll be taken through Mount Isa’s mining history, from its early twentieth century origins to today. You’ll wear orange overalls and standard issue miners’ boots for the tour as well as a hard hat and cap lamp so you can see everything just as the miners see it. Inside, you’ll be asked to turn off your lamps and experience just how dark pure darkness is!

Step into the Alimak Cage (mine elevator) and feel the excitement of the descent into the underground mine. Quite the sensory journey, you’ll spend over two and a half hours travelling through 1.2km of tunnels in relative darkness and hear trucks and blasts, all the standard soundtrack of a miner’s working day. If the noise doesn’t tell you how tough miners are, the deep vibrations surely will!

You’ll wind your way through the tunnels and visit the crib room where the miners’ metal tags are hung on the board to indicate they’ve returned. Try your hand at an air leg drill, used to drill holes for the explosives to be inserted to blast through to the mine’s next stage.

Real miners lead the tours so look forward to some genuine stories from personal experience as you learn about the history of Mount Isa’s mining past. Hear about their rituals, mine culture and why a mining career often runs in families.

Did you know?

The attraction was named after ‘Hard Times’, the faithful horse of Mount Isa’s founding father, John Campbell Miles.

Location

19 Marian Street Mount Isa, Outback at Isa

Ph 07 4749 1555

The fully guided tours run 7 days a week except for New Year's Day, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Good Friday. Children must be 7 years of age and over. No cameras permitted on tour. Bookings essential.

Take a guided tour through the Riversleigh Fossil Centre and enjoy exclusive access to the laboratory where work continues on a daily basis. It’s an interesting starting point if you are planning a trip to the Riversleigh Fossil Fields. It’s also where you’ll meet fossil enthusiasts, Peita Parsons and Alan Rackham who show visitors how specimens are sorted and cleaned to go on display. Al is so passionate about Riversleigh that he’s been volunteering in the fields for 31 years with palaeontologist Mike Archer’s team from the University of New South Wales.

Even if viewing prehistoric wonders has not been high on your bucket list, the Riversleigh Fossil Centre will change your mind. It’s a self-guided interactive exhibit that brings to life the ancient world and introduces visitors to the kinds of animal and plant life that existed in the area from around 30 to 40 million years ago, and shows how our current world is shaped by them. That era in history was when the last remaining chunk of the Gondwana supercontinent broke away to become what we now know as Australia and Antarctica. Considering Australia’s remoteness from the rest of the world as a result, it’s really not so surprising that some of the planet’s most unusual mammals have been discovered here; creatures like feathertailed possums, marsupial moles and the extinct marsupial lion.

The videos and dioramas will help you to fathom just how amazing it is to look at something so old, yet still preserved for us to examine.

The Riversleigh fossil deposit is worldrenowned as one of Australia’s richest and most important fossil field discoveries. Visitors are encouraged to attend the Riversleigh Lab Tour with Alan prior to visiting the Riversleigh Fossil Fields.

Location

19 Marian Street, Mount Isa Outback at Isa

Ph 07 4749 1555

Open 8.30am-5.00pm 7 days a week. Closed New Year's Day, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and Good Friday

Take a guided tour including exclusive access to the laboratory. Guided tour bookings are essential as places are limited.