Archer River Roadhouse to Weipa, Queensland
A quick 200km drive north to Weipa, a bauxite mining town, where we relax for the afternoon and feast on mud crab in the evening.
A later start than usual saw the convoy on the road at 0830. We didn't get very far, for the first stop was that Archer River, 300m and down the hill from the campsite. There, we took quite a few pictures of the convoy as it crossed the riverbed. The Archer River in the dry isn't much--a pleasant, cool stream meandering across a sandy river bottom, with lots of great campsites tucked underneath the trees. In the Wet, though, it looks like it can get quite wide, even into the campground where we stayed the night before! There's a picture inside the roadhouse with the floodwaters just lapping at the front lawn.
After the picture sessions was over, we headed north on the road, which was in very good condition as it crossed gently rolling country. After a couple of dozen kilometers, the road dropped down to the plains that run west towards the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the country opened up a bit, with a sparse covering of trees and cattle stations here and there. We often passed stray cattle on this stretch, looking very underfed and scrawny.
About 50km from Weipa, we stopped for a "comfort" break (which I suspect was DB needing to pee), and discovered that the tie bar on Doug and Lorraine's Prado had broke--the adjustment bolt on the tie bar had snapped in two. (For the record, Aussies call it a panman rod, or something like that!) Our ten minute comfort stop was to last a bit longer... Wayne got out his kit to do some welding, we pulled the two batteries out of the front of Wayne's Landcruiser, and he welded it right up. In about an hour we were on the road again, and the last 50km into Weipa passed quickly.
Weipa is a curious town, a company town, wholly owned and setup by Comalco, which mines the extensive bauxite deposits around town. Bauxite is raw aluminum ore, and the deposits around Weipa are the world's largest, stretching for many miles to the north and south of town. As you come into town, you see evidence of the massive effort that this large-scale mining operation entails: large roadways for the huge mining vehicles, tall pyramids of bauxite next to the wharf for loading, a couple of large ships waiting to be loaded with ore or unload supplies, I'm not sure which. We're looking forward to the mine tour in the next couple of days.
We got to Weipa before 1:00pm, so everyone setup their tents and relaxed in the afternoon. We wandered over to the newsagent's and Woolworth's next to the campground to see what's on offer, and found both as well stocked as any country town. Only the vast selection of gun, 4WD, and porn magazines gave away the fact that this is a mining town.
I also got in touch with the University of Western Australia for a week long botanizing trip in conjunction with the Western Australia Department of Conservation and Land Management (CALM). The program is called LANDScope (the website is http://www.calm.wa.gov.au/tourism/lsexpeditions/index.html), and they offer several expeditions where you go along with researchers into the field as assist with their work. The particular expedition we're looking at would be a week in the Kalbarri section of WA, in he central west inland arid region, doing some research into the plant life that grows on a former cattle station. They have room, and I think it'd be a great way to get to know some of the spring wildflowers of WA. We'd do this in the first week of September, so it slots into our schedule nicely after the Kimberly and the Top End.
Weipa's also quite warm--it's roughly the same distance from the equator that Honduras is, so it never really gets cold, and even in this supposed 'winter' it's still in the low 30's Celsius (upper 80's Fahrenheit) during the day, and quite humid. We sat and sweated in the tent for awhile after visiting the stores, reading and napping.
In the evening time, we gathered around for a mud crab feast--yum! In the late afternoon, DB went down to the docks, and picked up a crate of mud crabs, and we pulled our chairs around in a circle and watched him boil them four at a time in two large pots over the fire. After they were all done, he pounded them open, we put them on a box lid, and then tore into them--yum! I'd never had mud crab, and found it wonderfully sweet, sometimes even nutty. We didn't even bother with plates or utensils: we just put the crabs on our vinyl table, and picked off the meat with our fingers.
After hosing down the table, we went to bed, our bellies full of crab.
Weird Wildlife Sighting
Hm. Again, I'm not sure. Do live mud crabs in a crate ready for eating count?