Qualla: Lake Moondarra

Lake Moondarra: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shiftchange at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Moondarra, the old name is said to mean: plenty of rain, also thunder. It is a hopeful name for a place this dry. Sixteen kilometres downstream of Mount Isa, the Leichhardt River was pinched shut by a dam in the 1950s, and the water that backed up behind it became something the desert city could not live without - and, almost as an afterthought, the place it goes to play. Out here, where the country runs to red rock and spinifex, a sheet of open blue water is close to a miracle.

Read more: Lake Moondarra on Qualla

Image: Shiftchange at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Lake Moondarra: Water for a Thirsty City

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Uwe Dedering, CC BY-SA 3.0. Mount Isa was built on ore, but it survives on water, and for years water was the field's great anxiety. The answer was the Leichhardt Dam, begun in 1956 and completed on 6 November 1958 at a cost of 1.7 million pounds. It was, at the time, the largest water scheme in Australia f...

Read more: Lake Moondarra on Qualla

Image: Uwe Dedering | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lake Moondarra: Older Than the Dam

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shiftchange at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Long before any engineer studied this stretch of river, people gathered here for a different reason. This was the site of one of Australia's largest stone axe quarries, on the traditional country of the Kalkadoon people. The stone worked here was prized, and the finished axes tra...

Read more: Lake Moondarra on Qualla

Image: Shiftchange at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Lake Moondarra: A Beach in the Desert

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ravenspear82 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lake Moondarra is where Mount Isa comes to breathe. There are picnic areas and pontoons, a ski jump and water-sports facilities; sailors and birdwatchers and anglers share the shoreline. One stretch is called Transport Bay for a frankly outback reason - the company's trucks haule...

Read more: Lake Moondarra on Qualla

Image: Ravenspear82 at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Lake Moondarra: The Weevil and the Weed

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Shiftchange at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Not every story here is about people. In the late twentieth century the lake faced an invasion - Salvinia molesta, a floating fern that can blanket a waterway, choking out light and life beneath. The remedy was almost absurdly small. A species of weevil, a beetle that feeds on th...

Read more: Lake Moondarra on Qualla

Image: Shiftchange at English Wikipedia | Public domain