Day 15 - Near the Tip to Wiepa by Tilly

This morning none of us woke up very happy. I went to bed last night and found a puddle of water at the bottom of my swag where my feet go, so I thought it was going to be a long night, but after seeing the python in the tree, I zipped my canvas up even though it was stinking hot. I thought it was about 3 or 4 when I decided that I was sweating too much and my feet were too cold, so I got up and got in the car, which I couldn’t even lay the seat down properly because there was too much junk in the back seat. I checked the time to see how long I have left and it was only 10:30, so it was a very long night. It started raining at about 4:30 in the morning and because we have a UHF on a chord out to the roof, the door didn’t seal properly, so there was also a leak on my left night from 4:30 onwards.

Mum and I got up to watch the sunset on the beach, which was pretty cool. We found some very well camouflaged crabs in the sand, which you could only see when they were moving, then everyone else came to see it.

(here’s the crab)

After that, we packed up all our stuff and kept driving. Because there was a fair bit of rain, the roads were a bit slippery, but not too bad.

We also saw a few more brumbies (which were very quiet):

We stopped at a place called Saisia whee we had a look at the wharf and Bill had a fish. We could see heaps of fish in there, but he didn’t catch any.

We had a few more stops, then kept going. As we were driving, we saw someone on a horse that we thought was falling off heaps of times, but it turns out it was just some Islander boy having a bit of fun on a brumby. He didn’t have a saddle, just a saddlecloth and a bit with a bit of rope around the horses ears. Dad reckons it was the wildest ride he’d ever seen.

Our next stops was when we were waiting for the ferry to take us over the Jardine River. There was a long line up for people trying to get off the tip, but barely a line for those trying to get on. We stopped and kicked the footy while we were waiting, then went over and watched the ferry come back and forth while Dad was keeping the car in the line. There was one man running the ferry in his own and he was doing a god job. There was a rumour that he would take his hour lunch break between 12 and 1, but he didn’t, then at about 1:30, he signalled he’d be back in 20 minutes and he ran up the hill and got himself some lunch, then gave a bag of chips to a little girl that was waiting.

Once we got over the river, we stopped at Fruit Bat Falls and Dad, Bill, Addy and Paddy went for a swim. It was very pretty.

We kept going, then stopped for a break at the Bramwell Roadhouse, where we finished of a Chook and some bread that Steve and Jackie had given us.

It then got dark pretty quickly, and we saw the sunset and the lights on the ocean of the boats at Weipa.

Then we came back to Steve and Jackie’s, where Jackie had made us spaghetti bolognaise for tea, then we all had a shower to get the sand and station dust off us before heading off to bed.

Goodnight