Coen to Weipa (written Monday 11 August)

Once again, the road from Coen to Weipa was uneventful, apart from the next half million corrugations – tho we decided that this stretch of road wasn’t as bad as the road from Laura to Coen.  But we did cross the Archer River – very picturesque – and John even agreed to stop so I could take some photos!

It was on this stretch of road that we came across our first road trains – boy!  Did they kick up the dust!  Thank heaven they were going the other way!  But we had to stop till the dust cleared so we could see where we were going.

We finally reached Weipa at around 1.30 – the last 25ks was great!  Still dirt, but because we’d entered the mining area, the road was graded and smooth.  As ­we­ entered Weipa, we came across the first, and I suspect the only, set of traffic lights since Cairns, at the a hauling road – just a reminder that you’re in a mining town – the hauling traffic gets right of way.

Weipa is a mining town, with the largest bauxite mine in the world.  We had hoped to take a tour of the mine, but both tours for Monday were booked out, as was Tuesday morning’s tour. So it was a good idea, but didn’t happen.

So we spent this morning doing the washing (how exciting!) and exploring Weipa – which took all of an hour, including a trip to the one and only shopping centre, and a fair bit of that time was standing in the queue at Woollies.  And this afternoon John and Ken are doing running repairs and checks on the cars and trailers – little things like repairing the battery clamp in the trailer and the cutlery drawer which had disintegrated on the corrugations.  But all nuts and bolts were still tight and everything was still “ship-shape”.

The guys plan to go fishing tonight – so we might be having fish for dinner tomorrow night – after Ann and Bob, who have made it to Coen today, arrive.  Can’t wait to see them again!