Wed, 20th July, 2016 Bush camp near Sandy Creek, E of Nullagine to Bush camp, Mosquito Creek Goldfields, NE of Nullagine, WA

7am 13.5 degrees, clear sky and sunny.

I went up the hill to upload blog and get the Nullagine Shop’s phone number so Jeff could check if his mail had arrived yet – No.

Packed up and headed north-east along the Skull Springs Road to Mosquito Creek – hope it wasn’t named because of the mosquitoes there!! Though on sunset we were getting small mosquitoes around the campfire.

Stopped at a creek before turning north to Mosquito Creek to check out a handpump for bore water. Steve got it going and I took a video of him. It tasted salty. Fine for the washing up and showering.

Lovely gum trees along the creek and the edge has lots of grass for the cattle that Jeff said the station owners would have put there.

Checked out the bore before the crossing of Mosquito Creek – it has a solar panel and water was pumping out into the tank, troughs and the overflow so we will be able to get washing water etc here. Crossed over Mosquito Creek – no water in here so maybe no mosquitoes!

Followed a track up beside the river and drove down onto the bank to park up and then explore for a campsite. No reception for the phone here and it was on the grass area for the cattle and was all churned up and dusty. Steve unhooked the van then heard a hissing and noticed the back tyre on the truck going down. Found the culprit – a sharp rock.

He had to use 4 plugs to seal it off. As Steve was pumping up the tyres I noticed he had run over a fresh cow pad – he said ‘yes and it was right where the leak was!’

The boys then headed off for a drive while I rested and the van with my book. They found a spot further along in an area that had been burnt off a while back. They met a couple who have been leaving out of the troopcarrier for 16 years while touring Australia birdwatching – that’s what I call keen. Steve asked if they had seen the meteorite thing we saw and they suggested it could have been the Space Station crossing over – that could be right as we saw it in Tassie and it was just like it. Will have to look it up on the internet to see if it had crossed over here. The hills look very stark without the spinifex coating.

Set up camp, no phone reception here in the van either so will have to go for a drive up a hill to find some. The boys had it the other day in patches.

Further across was a rocky hill – looks so different from the others around here.

Even though it is barren it is still very pretty country.

Some huge anthills too.

Opened up all the windows and vents as it is 29 in the van. Into our shorts. Headed off with our detectors. Lots of tin rubbish around camp. I worked a scraped area for a while but got nothing. Steve came back with a lovely little quartz specimen he found in the creek area. He is getting a collection of them.

That spurred me on so I headed down the creek – lots of rubbish. Oh well doing my bit for cleaning up Australia. Harder finding the targets in the sand but at last I was rewarded with a lovely little nuglet.

Unfortunately Jeff didn’t find anything. Got the fire going and relaxed for a while. A lot warmer this evening. Kept a lookout for the Space Station again but we have the hills around us and it was pretty low on the horizon when we saw it.

The full moon rose over the hills making a very pretty sight.

Closed up the van a bit but I doesn’t feel as cool tonight. Still 20 degrees in the van at 10pm.