Nearly there: the Pen-ULTIMATE leg

(Almost) Weeping in Weipa

Perhaps the less said about Weipa the better, but it seems - well, wrong, really - to completely gloss over the times that are less than wonderful. And there were some good things so I guess I really need to file a report on Weipa before moving on to the penultimate stage.

First up, Max had organised sublime camping right on the beachfront. There was plenty of birdlife about, especially on the water. Here are a couple of shots Di took from where we were situated ...

This was somewhat offset the first night by the guy camped next to us, who snored almost as loud as anyone we'd ever heard snore before. We wondered how his female partner could have slept herself. I did see her on her way to the amenities block the next morning and she was pressing her head in such a way as to suggest she was suffering from a fairly bad headache.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. Shortly after we arrived and set up camp, Di and I went to the shopping centre. We needed to buy a few provisions, thought we'd have a coffee and check our emails and I wanted to have a haircut. The haircut was a no-goer. The one hairdresser in Weipa reckoned she couldn't take any additional customers  until next week. I was so keen I even asked for a quick buzz cut. She couldn't even manage that. Maybe all the locals wanted to look their best for all the out-of-towners flooding in for the Weipa Fishing Classic, which was coming up in a few days time. Still, I thought she'd be able to do a quick clip job, seeing as there wasn't anyone waiting apart from the bloke who was in the chair, and he had less hair on than me already. No such luck. Strike one.

So, off we went to the coffee shop only to find that our new super-duper Telstra mobile broadband modem wasn't connecting us to the internet. After an hour and a half on the phone and being hand-balled around three different Asian gentlemen I gave up in total frustration. I believe the third gentleman really was trying to help by getting me to do the same sequence of things over and over again but he clearly wasn't on top of the problem. By the end I was just about barking. Strike two.

The next morning we discovered that - for whatever reason - our fridge had stopped working. Clearly it had stopped working some hours before as all the contents of the freezer had thawed and everything in the main compartment was warm. While Graham and I were at reception checking out the deal on the mine tour we spotted this possible replacement fridge ...

... but thought that Don might declare the Ulti was not a "powered site" as such.

Anyway, we hurriedly rearranged things so all the stuff that looked salvageable went into the car fridge, which meant that the beer had to come out. Most of the stuff in the freezer just had to be chucked out. Strike three.

Thankfully things started to look up from there. When we got home we decided to try the internet again and, lo and behold, we were able to connect and do stuff just fine. That's when I stayed up late into the night and wrote up the previous post of this blog, but only after calling Telstra to let them know that there must have been something about the Weipa shopping centre that had stopped us from connecting when strike two happened. The upshot was that we got a couple of free gig of internet access added to our account.

Later in the morning, along with Liz and Graham, Di and I had a tour of the Weipa bauxite mine which I found somewhat interesting in the sheer enormity of the enterprise. (It is one of the largest - if not the largest - bauxite mine in the world.) Di, on the other hand,  said categorically "That was the most boring tour I've ever done".  This picture of a bauxite mine might give you an idea why ...

Yep. That's it. That's a bauxite mine, just without the machines running around in it.There's not much to it really. Essentially all they do is scrape off the overburden, scoop up the bauxite and then fill in the area afterwards. But the machines they us are VERY BIG. So big that we couldn't actually fit one into a frame of the camera. And the amounts of bauxite they dig up is staggering. Here's a picture of the loading facility:

Whatever. All four of us understood why Prue and Max decided to give the tour a miss after having done it once before.  Enough said on that subject.

Once we got back, Di decided to try to kick start the fridge by filling the bottom section with ice. She reasoned that, if nothing else, we'd be able to keep some perishables at least a bit cool. I reasoned that I'd be able to put beer back in the car fridge. Guess what? The fridge did start working again and, apart from other benefits, we did have cold beer again. Things were looking up, especially when we discovered that the snorer next door had moved on.

So, now we can move on. To preview this section, here's a map of the Cape York area with our approximate route marked in in red and blue, with boxes around places of interest (if you right click the image it will open in a new window and you can enlarge it to full size):

To Captain Billy's Landing

What a great drive we had the next day! While the first part wasn't very interesting, once we found our way off the Peninsula Development Road we started to have a lot of fun. And there was one real point of interest on the PDR in the form of the Moreton Telegraph Station, which was completed in 1887 and is now run as a commercial enterprise. Situated adjacent to the crossing on the Wenlock River, it was also a useful stopping off place for folks who might have to wait for flood waters to recede - although it was sometimes inundated along with the surrounding bushland. Here's the entrance ...

... and a close-up of the sign telling you what the place has to offer ...

The kiosk provides a nice place in a rustic style to cool off for passers-by ...

We actually bought a great sticker from here showing a Palm Cockatoo, which we still hadn't seen up to this point. However, there was a Bush Turkey scratching around down by the river ...

... but Max the consummate draftsman was most interested in the new bridge. Here he is inspecting the structure - and no doubt the workmanship - and giving Liz the benefit of his expertise ...

No doubt Graham wouldn't have minded having the bridge there away back in 1986, when he came across on a raft of 44 gallon drums, while others drove through the river with water over the bonnets of their vehicles.

Shortly thereafter we stopped at Bramwell Station for an early lunch. It was somewhere you could stop and camp if you were in between other roadhouses or camping areas. There was what seemed to be a kiosk set up so I went over to see if they did lunch. It turned out that they only served dinner, but did have grog available (a couple propping up the bar were already on to Jim Beam and Coke). We passed on that offer and had our own refreshments. We then took a neat little four wheel drive track through some lovely bush that was a bit of a short cut off the main development road. I managed to persuade to get Di to take take a photo of this magnificent Cathedral Ant Mound ...

... but only because she also spotted this cattle at just that spot. She was particular taken with the one that had the multi-coloured face ...

We rejoined the main drag for another short drive before arriving at the turnoff to Captain Billy's landing. If you look at the vegetation behind the sign below you will probably notice much thicker vegetation than we've seen for a while. That's because we are back in rainforest ...

... where we assembled before setting off ...

... on a great little track through the forest It had a number of neat little creek crossings before we fetched up at this great spot to spend a couple of nights ...

It was a bit windy when we arrived (a bloke we met pulled over beside the track said that it was "blowing its guts out down at Captain Billy") so we tried to slide into spots as out of the wind as we could. Graham and Liz and Max and Prue slotted themselves in behind the picnic shelter but Di made it clear that she wanted me to park in this place where the track curls down from the hill ...

Prue had previously resolved to put on a lamb roast, and had organised all the fixings in Weipa (one more tick on the good side of the ledger for Weipa) including rosemary sprigs for her roast and the vegies that Di was doing in our little camp oven, as well as mint and apple for her own special mint sauce. Unfortunately this photo of that great meal is all I have to illustrate our enjoyment ...

Next morning we all set off at various speeds up the beach for a walk. Max remembered the beach being covered in thongs when he and Prue were through here seven years ago. There didn't seem to be quite so much footwear, or flotsam in general, but there was an interesting variety, including this massive hawser embedded in the sand - so big and heavy I couldn't budge it ...

What must have been something of a hazard to even reasonable sized boats was this Westinghouse freezer ...

But, as always the natural environment was the most interesting. I really liked this tree that had been prevailed upon by the - dare I say it - prevailing winds ... 

Sorry about that, but it really is a good illustration of the way wind can shape vegetation. It was about 10 metres long and the main trunk was about as big around as my thigh.

Although it was a bit blowy I had been contemplating a swim, but not after we came across this croc hiding place just around the corner ...

Focussing again on the beach rather than the water, we started to see a number of holes like this one, which my thumb easily fit into ...

I thought there might be crabs in these holes, so I dug down with a Nautilus shell I found laying on the sand nearby ...

... but after about 600 mm the hole just petered out.

Towards the end of our morning walk the sun actually came out quite strongly for a while and we got this photo showing what the shore looked like southwards of the landing ...

After a seafood-free lunch we all headed off together in that direction. The tide had gone out enough to allow us to sneak around the headland on a rock shelf that was partly covered with sand ... 

There were caves to explore ...

... and these interesting, pitted but very solid-looking rocks deposited on the beach ...

Back near where one arrives at the beach is the old, ruined jetty ...

... which we thought might have been used to bring supplies ashore during World War II.

That night it rained (and blew its guts out) quite a bit, which was quite good because Di got some lovely vegetation shots the next morning before we set off ...

She also went down to the beach strand and got this nice shot of a creeper that was weaving itself into the sand ...

We left Captain Billy's Landing with this panorama imprinted on our minds (don't look too closely: the stitching hasn't worked as well as I'd like) ...

We Roll On to Loyalty Beach

Back to the main road and then northwards, the next major point of interest is the Jardine River crossing where it is necessary to take a ferry across if you wish to enter the Northern Peninsula Area. Cost for a car, trailer and two passengers: $145. Don't worry, that covers the return journey. Here's the ferry arriving at the south bank of the river with one car on board ...

... and Di and me getting off on the north bank ...

And now on to the highlight of the day, something we'd been looking forward to for a long time: a freshwater swim at the famous Fruit Bat Falls. Prue took this photo of the falls ...

... and this one of the rest of us enjoying the water ...

Back on dry land, Graham asked if we'd seen the carnivorous plants. Di went back down the track and took a few photos. I thought this was the best one ...

By this time we really felt we'd arrived in the far north, especially as the roads had suddenly deteriorated significantly - but there was also a certain "je ne sais quoi" in the air.

After lunch it was back on the road for the final short leg to Loyalty Beach.  This memorial can be found at the entrance to reception ...

... and here is the detail from the plaque ...

It seems pretty sad that "Old Dan" (Old? At sixty?) died only four years after establishing the campground and fishing lodge at Loyalty Beach. 

Now for another Max story. (Max is short for Maxwell, but it could also be "Maxi-Million" because he's worth his weight in gold, maximising every situation). When we arrived we discovered that we hadn't been allocated a spot to camp despite having booked quite some time in advance. Max managed to negotiate a wonderful area for us to pull into and set up our campers. There's not a lot else to say about Loyalty Beach at this stage,  because we had just the late afternoon to appreciate the beauty of the place before catching the ferry over here to Horn Island in the Torres Strait Islands group. I'll write more about Loyalty Beach when we return to the mainland the day after tomorrow.

Meanwhile, here's a photo of some containers waiting to be hoisted about the main cargo ship that serves the islands. Note the vehicles perched on top of the containers ...

The next photo shows that cargo ship, with our ferry in front - which gives you an idea of how big is the passenger ferry that runs between Siesia on the mainland and Thursday Island ...

After the hour-long cruise across to Thursday Island we sat waiting for the little ferry that would run us across to Horn Island. We are now in island mode ...

... and so are Liz, Graham, Prue and Max ...

That's it for this post. More on Horn and Thursday Islands and Loyalty Beach in the next post. And then it's off to the tip of the continent. See you later ...