Not too far out of Laura we stopped at a termite tombstone
display (see photo).
 |
| Termite tombstones |
In all our research and readings at home we had been given
the impression the roads were going to be very rough and require extra travel
time. At the start out of Laura this morning we thought this was going to be
true as we encountered very deep loose gravel making for pretty slow going. Oh,
well, we had decided it is what it is, but low and behold after a few kms the
road smoothed out and we didn’t see any more of that. We did experience
washboard (corrugations as they call them here) , deep soft red dirt, hard
pack, dust holes, dust clouds from passing vehicles, crests and dips (some of
which went through creek beds with water and some dry) and some bitumen (Australian
for pavement) sections. These weren’t too long and usually in front of
homesteads, roadhouses and where it looked like the road would wash away in the
wet season. After all Doug did drive 516 km today on these supposedly
challenging roads. He tells me he is fine and not even too tired!!!
The road is covered in the very fine red dust which as you
can imagine gets into everything. The outside of the camper is pretty dirty and
we are glad the door fits fairly snugly but having said that we are still
finding the red dust on things in the cupboards and on the counter, etc.
Anything we have in the outside storage compartments is solid red!
 |
| Red dust everywhere! |
There is quite a bit of road kill and after seeing many dead
kangaroos, wild pigs and even a cow we were losing hope of seeing anything
alive but there came a kangaroo hopping across the road in front of us. We saw
a few more as well as a dingo (wild dog) and lots of free range cows as we were
travelling past “stations” – Australian for outback ranch.
We had initially thought we would stop in Coen for the night
but were already there just after lunch so decided to press on. Our lunch stop
was beside the Coen creek, a very pleasant cool stop in the shade. It got up to
32 degrees again today.
We also stopped at two roadhouses, Musgrave and Archer
River, where we got a fuel top up of diesel for $2.25 a litre! Everything has
to be transported in to this isolated area so the closer we get to Cape York
the higher the prices seem to be. Another example – a Gatorade for $6.50.
We arrived in Weipa in time for a short walk before dinner
and dark. It gets dark by 6:30 so we find we need to plan well or Doug would be
cooking with artificial light attracting the bugs. Our cook stove is an exterior
pullout.
 |
| Norma's trawler prawns |
Weipa is a bauxite mining town. They ship this aluminum ore
to smelters from the harbour here. There are several areas where you can see
the haul roads for the ore trucks and even an ore truck crossing controlled by
a “train” stop light. The other main industry is fishing and apparently is very
popular with the sports fishermen. We did see many vehicles pulling boats, a
bit dodgy on these road conditions I would think.
After our wonderful shrimp dinner (from the trawler at
Cooktown) we walked over to the shore (our campground is right on the ocean –
Gulf of Carpenteria) and watched the sun set. It is a bit cloudy but it was very
pretty with the sun being veiled by the clouds. Attached is Doug’s camera’s
artistic rendition.
 |
| Weipa sunset |
No comments:
Post a Comment