QHA_March 2018_Electronic_s

FEATURE
TRUE NORTH
QHA REVIEW | 18
Weipa. with a population of less the 5000 people is the
largest town on the Cape York Peninsula and for those
unaware, has quite an interesting history. Duyfken
Point, just north of Weipa is the first recorded point of
European contact with the Australian continent. Dutch
explorer Willem Janszoon, on his ship the Duyfken,
sighted the coast here in 1606, some 164 years before
Lieutenant James Cook sailed up the east coast of
Australia.
The town itself began as a Presbyterian Aboriginal
mission outpost before the start of the 20th century
in 1898. It wasn’t until 1955 that a geologist by the
name of Henry Evans discovered the red cliffs on the
Aboriginal reserve, previously remarked on by the early
Dutch explorers and Matthew Flinders, were actually
enormous deposits of bauxite – the ore from which
aluminium is made – and to a lesser extent tungsten.
The rest as they say is history. Mining commenced
in 1960 with the present town constructed mainly
by Comalco (now called Rio Tinto Alcan). The Weipa
bauxite mine is the largestof its kind in the world.