Weipa

From Punsand we headed south, again stopping at Bamaga to stock up on supplies. One thing we
overlooked was grog, thinking we could get some further south – sadly not to be! The road was pretty good, most of it we hadn’t travelled on when coming up as we’d gone up the Old Telegraph Track. We had a little detour to Bramwell Station hoping to get some lunch, but we were out of luck as they only did dinner. So we headed to Bramwell Junction and had a great burger there, donating our recently purchased lettuce as they had run out and the supply truck wasn’t due to the next day. From there we had a slow drive to Moreton Telegraph Station which is on the Wenlock River and had a relaxing arvo there. Apparently this is a good spot to see the Palm Cockatoo, we only knew this when a tour group of birdo’s were running around very excitedly – we got to hear him but not see him in the flesh.

In Moreton we heard that there was a rodeo in Weipa on the weekend so we headed in that direction. We made a short day of it and stopped at Merluna Station, about 120km SE from Weipa. They just run cattle here, and with over 400,000 acres they have a heap of room to run them! Cattle prices in general aren’t good at the moment so Merluna and a number of other stations haven’t sold any cattle for a few years now. It was an interesting stay, all their kids are off the station at the moment, one at boarding school at Townsville, one of the girls droving in the Gulf, while the oldest of the girls was following the boyfriend on the rodeo circuit in Canada. We had dinner with the family and station hands, a good ole dish of steak and vegies. It was at Merluna that I noticed an oil leak around the passenger side CV boot – Cameron (the station owner) had a closer look at it in the morning but wasn’t sure what it was – their machinery is more tractor like! The kids enjoyed checking the station out including a couple pigs soon to end up on the dinner table.

It was only a short hike into Weipa the next morning. We were hoping to hang around to see Merluna’s mail plane arrive but I was pretty keen to get into Weipa to get the oil leak checked out as the weekend was fast approaching. At the campground we got another great spot right on the beach with heaps of shade. The kids were doubly rapt as it has a great pool, which is handy when the beach is again off limits due to crocs. After setting up camp I headed off asap to get the cruiser checked out. As expected they were flat out and with a quick inspection they weren’t sure where the leak was coming from – they said to come back early in the morning and they’d put it on the hoist.

So it was back there next day, and once we had the bash plates off, my worst fear of a stuffed diff seal was happily put to rest. It ended up being relatively minor – the front diff breather had been ripped off close to the diff, not sure how as it’s pretty well protected! It must have happened a few river crossing back as the diff was full of water! We did a temporarily fix as part of the breather was missing which should see us get back to Melb no probs, and filled the diff up with some good oil. The oil in the rear diff and transmission was fine so that was reassuring after all the water crossings.

Weipa is a Rio Tinto (ex Camalco) Mining town with a population around 3000. They mine for Bauxite which is the raw material for aluminium. Most of it goes to Gladstone by ship for processing.
We got in some shopping at the only shopping centre. Interestingly I was not allowed to buy a cask of wine at lunchtime (local liquor laws), I had to come back after 5pm when there was a limit of two casks per person. When I rocked back there at 6.30 the whole fridge was virtually empty, I got one of four casks left. The guy there said that if you aren’t there at 5pm each day there’s a good chance you’ll miss out! Mid arvo we headed off to the rodeo, one of the two major attractions of the year, the other being the fishing comp. This was a bull riding only event, but was entertaining enough to keep us there for over six hours. There was a huge community turnout with both white and indigenous locals. The bull riders and the clowns are crazy guys, not sure who is crazier, with one of the clowns taking a serious hit with one bull lifting him up on top of the railings which are about 2m high. Dinner for the evening was a few cans of XXXX and a meat lovers pizza, can’t get more country than that.

Today was another cruisy day with not doing much except taking in a mine tour in the morning. It was sort of nice to be driven around rather than drive yourself. Two hours saw us see the ins and outs of the town as well as have a real close up look at the mine workings. Big Tonkas up here and not all blokes toys with about 25% of the drivers being female (they reckon they treat the trucks better, and therefore get more mileage out of them – yeah right !). Nothing cheap with these machines either - one tyre alone for one of the loaders up here costs $40,000, Louise shouldn’t ever complain about the cost of the Coopers again! Arvo we took in a walk down the beach and later watched the sunset over the gulf, the last for us before we head south (& east).

It’s been warmish up here hitting 34 today, but also it’s been very windy. Heading south tomorrow, not sure where we’ll get to, but it will probably be somewhere around Musgrave Telegraph Station.