Weipa
Postcode: 4874
Weipa a town on the Gulf of Carpentaria coast on Cape York Peninsula in Queensland, Australia, is a mining town of approximately 3,000 people that exists because of the enormous bauxite deposits along the coast.
Weipa is just south of Duyfken Point, a location now agreed to be 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. This was 164 years before Captain James Cook sailed up the east coast of Australia.
Weipa began as a Presbyterian Aboriginal mission outpost in 1898. In 1932 it was moved to Jessica Point, now called Napranum, about 12 km south of the present town of Weipa.
Close to the Cape York spot where the Dutch trader Willem Janz made the first recorded European landfall on the Australian mainland in 1606, Weipa is the end of the line for travellers heading north on the Peninsular Development Road.
A town built to support the mining of Comalco’s massive bauxite deposits, Weipa is a pleasant community flanking the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Carpentaria, which attracts both adventurers and keen fisherman. It has all the facilities you’d expect in a frontier town, plus the chance to tour a huge mine site.