Weipa and the southern Cape

We had a forced week long stay in Weipa - we broke a spring somewhere on our way up to the Tip and needed to repair that before moving on.  Fortunately they were able to get one shipped up from Melbourne – eventually - such is the tyranny of remoteness. The trip had been sort of ‘event-free’ to that point with Lindsay managing to fix minor issues like brake lines and some water inlet/outlet issues.  All in all having travelled over more than 5000Ks on dirt roads to that point - some very 'challenging' - we had done amazingly well.

Back tracking a few days, we reckoned the van had a bit of a lean when we were leaving Bamaga (20-30 K from the Tip) and by the time we pulled into Bramwell Roadhouse some 200 ks south our little house on wheels had quite a jaunty lean – sacre bleu ….. a broken spring. After an overnight stop there, we nursed the baby along till we got to Weipa ~180 dirt Ks away. We took a chance and took the ‘short cut’ through Batavia Downs station to get to help 'sooner' - hopefully, but I had our sat phone by my elbow in case!  We have been lucky. The people camped next to us at Weipa had their car written off somewhere up at the Tip near where we had been staying. They went through a creek which came up passed the level of the floor at which time they discovered that a grommet in the floor somewhere near 'the all essential computer' had not been put in and voila - water and electrics seem not to mix.  Poor things. Our car has been mighty! Lindsay has walked it over grids masquerading as stiles, through creeks narrow and steep-sided, across 'creeks' where the direction of the 'road' was anyone's guess, through expanses of water of unmarked depth. We reckon our 4WD training and plain common sense plus a big dash of calculated guessing has brought us through and we have cheered heartily when the wheels hit dry/firm-ish ground.

Weipa is a mining town but quite interesting for all that.  Once we had booked the van in for repairs, we went on a tour of part of Rio Tinto's bauxite mines - fascinating and huge. Millions of tons of ore are shipped from Weipa port each year.  Mind boggling but just as impressive is the revegetation/restoration program  - years of mapping, seed collecting, consultation with the local people, all designed to return the land as close as possible to what is was after mining is finished in the area. A matter of take a bit, AKA huge swathe! and then move on.  Fifty years of mining remains they say part of which is the planned southern Weipa fields which are expected to be larger than the current ones. We drove to Marpoon 90Ks north for a look. This is the community which was relocated when mining operations started, driven as much of the coast line as possible - much of it is  thick mangrove and we are nervous about getting out to  explore and a little nervous of driving down onto the beaches at low tide.  Weipa is situated at the mouth of 2 large rivers but again river edges are hard to access without local knowledge.  We travelled every road we came across and usually ended up on the rivers' edge somewhere. We took a sunset cruise on the harbour and up into one of the creeks running into the Embley River. It was heavenly after the ubiquitous hot humid afternoon to be cooled by breezes off the water.  On board there was an ecologist, maritime expert and a local indigenous man - the stories, history and highlights were wonderful.  We saw a small croc, and masses of water birds on the mudflats where the seagrass grows and on which the dugong feed and up in the narrow creek we saw kingfishers like flashes of iridescence through the overhanging branches, shy striated herons scuttled off as we approached, red-chocolate and white brahminy kites flew overhead only to drop like stones into the water for fish, and mangrove oysters clutching onto the air roots like lollies on a stick.  And then we spilled back out into the harbour with glasses of champers in hand to watch the sun slip into the ocean and the sky metamorphose into an artist's palette.  Not a bad way to end the day, eh!?

With brand new spring and a level van, we left the Cape a week later and felt quite sad. Our last night on the Cape was a bush camp at Hann River and it was quite magical - we sat outside and watched the sun go down and then lit the mozzie torches and coils and burnt gum leaves to keep the little buzzing blighters away. We discovered a wild passionfruit vine growing way up in a huge tree near the van and that was also host to a beautiful bougainvillea – we ate those huge pale, juicy passionfruit for days.  And then we emerged back in cultivated territory – we saw a Bunnings and then an Officeworks store – like being home!