The whole reason Weipa was founded was believe it or not Bauxite not fishing. The whole of the Cape is made up of this stuff and if we were all around for another 200yrs the mining up here will still be going strong. A quick lesson on how it all works. The bulldozers come in and rip out all the trees and take away the topsoil. Under this is the Bauxite, not sure how deep it goes but I believe only about 20-30 feet. The Bauxite is then taken to be washed and then transported to the port of Weipa, were it is stockpiled for export.
From there it is then loaded onto the ships for any number of countries around the world including Australia. This pic is looking down into the hold of a ship from the Bridge, this particular ship and most of the ones that come here load about 70000 tonnes of the stuff. What does it make I hear you ask? Bauxite is made into alumina which then becomes aluminium. The quality is so good up here that approx 4Ton of Bauxite makes 2 Ton of Alumina which then makes 1 Ton of Aluminum.
The final picture is looking from the Bridge down the ship, past the other ship and out to sea. The last bit of headland to the left of the ship is where we go fishing....So next time you have a coldie out of a can, it started as a bit of red dirt up Weipa way.
2 comments:
Thanks for the pictures Gary. No photos of you in a drunken stupor after getting your first Hole-in-one? Or was that someone else? Kallie got a text message from a person who said they were a "big brother" - I assumed it was you.
I've got a serious question though: How do they get the Bauxite out of the cargo hold at the other end? It looks like it is just dumped into the sections of the hold, but it's not like a silo where they can just turn on a "tap" at the bottom.
Firstly what is Kallie doing with your phone? Guess I should update the number.
The bauxite is discharged at the other end using a rather large scoop, and in some places a bloody big vacuum cleaner. In the picture it does look like sludge but it is actually little rocks about 5mm in size.
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