23/7/13 – We had a good night sleep, so people were taking a bit late and someone packed up early but we slept well in between, hardly any traffic noise, great spot well worth making an effort to stop there.
On the road just after 8am. There is a quarantine point approx 26km north of Coen which we didn’t know about until we got here. On the way up stop for an information kit then on the way back you are stopped and your fruit and veggies checked. If they are in good condition you get to keep them.
Archer River Roadhouse camping area looked pretty, large flat area, plenty of shade. Amenities looked ok too. Diesel was $2.20 L it was too early for Chris to have an Archer burger.
We had to stop and have a stroll across the Archer River and take some photos, it was really lovely. People were camping on the dry areas of the river bed, would be an amazing site in full flood.
We pulled into Weipa around 12 noon and booked into the Weipa campground. And a first for us we got one of the best sites in the park nice and big, able to stay hooked up and first row overlooking the beach. Thought great all set for the sunset but it came over, overcast so no, sunset. We think we are jinx when it comes to sunsets. Anyway the park is quite nice, fair bit of room, wasn’t too full when we got here but filled up as the arvo went on, its $30 for unpowered for the night. The amenities are a bit tired, larger main one is cleaned twice a day but it’s old, the staff were very friendly.
We decided to do a mine tour, $40 each, went for 2.5hrs. Starts with a tour around Weipa with the driver pointing out the old and newer areas and how much rent places go for $450 – $650 depending on the place and they were not flash places. Not much to the town, less shops etc. than we thought. We saw a croc on the beach edge.
Next was into the mine area, with strict instructions not to move around the bus, no videoing, photos were ok. Oh no food and drink on the bus but it was funny when he got off to sign us in at the mine people move seats and had drinks of water, felt like naughty school kids 🙂
The mine area is huge; tour was interesting, hard to take photos through dirty windows. Only down side was the aircon was not working and we all got very hot. It was cooler outside by the time we got back.
We went and had a swim in the pool to cool down, then relaxed for the rest of the evening.
Click on the link for a larger version in Google Maps of our travels.
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