Where, Oh where?

For the life of us we can't remember where we spent our first night in 1974. I guess I'll just have to drag out the old diaries when I get home.
We do remember that trip had to work in with Alan's long service leave. Coles and Garrard gave Alan half his pay so that the next half went into the bank after June 30th. It would be better tax wise if it was in the next financial year. This meant that by the time we reached Mount Isa we had run out of money. To manage until the money was in the bank we bush camped at the extreme rear of a beautiful lake behind the Mt Isa mines. We used up anything we had in the cupboards on, in and under stale bread. The water was crystal clear, but we noticed dead fish floating in the reeds at the edge of the lake. Had the lead from the mines killed them? We couldn't get the chalky taste out of the vegetables when we cooked them in lake water and Alan had an immovable white film over his dentures.
We had filled our water tank from a tap at the park before we realized the consequences. We lived with the taste until we reached a little town and an Aussie China man wrapped in a woolly jumper on a warm sunny day gave us some small bush lemons. Alan removed the water tank from under the camper, attached it to a rope, threw it into the middle of a nearby stream and let the clear water run through. Filled with fresh water and with some bush lemon juice squeezed into it and the tank was back to fresh drinking water once again.

I walk into a warm and comfortable motel and turn on the tap to fill the jug.