Living in and around Weipa.

I thought I would keep a record on of what my wife and I are doing up here in Weipa. This is mainly for my own amusement and so the family can keep up with me and not expect phone calls.
We have been in Weipa now for going on 9 years and still love the joint. Weipa is located on the western side of Cape York Peninsular in Nth Queensland  We have all the camping and fishing gear as this place does have it all.
We have spent a fair bit of time in the bush and on the water as we have a 609 Stabicraft that is my pride and joy.

Recently we bought an old trawler that was built in 1964 and is a solid wood hulled fitted with a Detroit diesel 2 stroke engine. It is not built for speed but is built to get where it is going at 6 knots and maybe a couple more if you really want to push it. The boat was originally on the east coast of Australia fishing off Innisfail. It then was sailed around to Weipa where it had a few owners before we bought her.


 

 

While it does need some work done to it I am interested in updating it a bit and making it a lot more comfortable to live on. This was a boat that was built to go to sea for a few days or a week or two. It has only the bare necessities on it like a shower and toilet, refrigerator, a gas stove and a bedroom up forward.

There is a lot of wasted space that we can use to make it more comfortable. We have some plans drawn up to extend the wheelhouse to make more room and add more solar panels and a 240 volt system to it. We want to keep the look of it the same as it is with just some additions that we think will make it more comfortable for us. This is what we hope it will look like with the help of our photo shop software. I have no idea how long this will take as the lifestyle here lends itself to being rather laid back.

I have three sons but only two that live here with us. They look like they will never leave home. They have no reason as they have all their big boy toys and good jobs. my wife and I have been very lucky since we came here and we both work for Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto mines bauxite here to make aluminium and it is shipped all over the world. My job here is to train and assess operators on the machines and we have all CAT equipment here that consists of mainly 776D, 777F, 777D belly dumpers and 785 C & D rear tippers. The loaders are 992G and 993K loaders, and the dozers are D10 and D11R and T dozers with of course other machines for road building and land clearing. When we finish mining the ore we return the land to as close as possible to what it was before and by returning the top soil that we have removed and then seeding it.
I have included photos of some of the machines.

992G Loader

                                                                             D10R

                                               992G Loader loading a 776D Belly Dumper

                                                               776D CAT Belly Dumper

                                                             Dozer with a scrub canopy

We have simulator that is an exact replica of a haul truck and also of a 992G loader that we use to train operators before they go out into the field for training on a real truck or loader. This  at least teaches where all the switches and controls are and the operators are taught what to do in the event of an emergency. The simulator is a recreation of part of the mine with haul roads and mine faces where they have to back under loaders to be loaded and then drive down the haul roads to dump the ore either at stock piles or onto a bridge that feeds the plant. the truck moves like a real truck does and responds to bumps in the road and travelling over mine floors.