Weipa

Greetings,
It has been a while since we spoke, sorry about that, the internet is pretty new up at Cape York and updates haven't been easy to organise.

We pick up our story driving through the town of Glenella, which is good but not as good as Markella. Leaving Cairns we head for Port Douglas for a rendevous with the Arve clan who are holidaying at their villa. A lovely lunch of crab and queenfish in very pleasant surroundings - I drag Graz away from the Mirage before she gets any fancy ideas about not wanting to live in a feral caravan for a year. Just to fully rid her of thoughts of luxury we stop the for the night at Mossman caravan park (the extra 's' is extremely important) which turns out to be pretty much full of what the french call 'Trailer Trash'. She cannot wait to leave and vows never to return.
The road winds its way up away from the coast to Mount Malloy, and I am reminded of the last time I was here on a dirt bike when our friend Keels had such a difficult time on the winding tar road. Wuss. Lakeland is the end of the sealed road, but we are pretty happy to find the dirt road is indeed in quite good shape, although these things are always subjective. Steady gentle rainfall is keeping the dust levels down and a lot of work is being down on the Peninsular Development Road after it took a beating from a couple of cyclones over summer. Musgrave is our camp for the night.
We arrive in Weipa after an uneventful days drive, a few slow corrugated sections punctuating what is otherwise a dirt freeway. I grandly give Graz the tour of the town (having been here before) which takes about 3 minutes. The camp ground at Weipa is quite pleasant really, even if it does have more than its quota of wankers in residence. Our favourite is the lone skinny middle aged bloke who cranks up the country music every evening for everybody's enjoyment. I come to the conclusion that country music is like The Wiggles for rednecks, they just can't help themselves, and vow to kill John Williamson at the next opportunity.
What about the fishing I hear you ask. Slow is the short answer. The weather is actually pretty damn nice but it is too cold for good fishing according to everybody you speak to. Combine this with some weird tides and a constant breeze pushing up a good chop and things aren't much fun in our little tinny. Graz catches the first fish of the trip, a mighty bream. Bream is pretty much the only species that is thriving at the moment, but we do manage to add catfish, black-tip shark and estuary cod the list of captures. Overall it has been pretty dissapointing but the weather is nice, and we have seen plenty of crocs (she hates them), a decent size shark (she hates them too), a sea-snake (she really hates them), and a pod of dolphins (she loves them).

We drag ourselves from Weipa after about a week and half of taking it easy. In truth we could have just stayed here for months, but the fishing would have improved at the expense of the weather so off we go. The road is a bit more beat up and a lot more dusty but still ok. We bush camp in the middle of you-know-where, before continuing on to tar roads and tourists.
later,brad and graz.