Thurs, 31st May, 2018 Bush camp, Mt Dockrell goldfields, south-west of Halls Creek, WA

7am 19 degrees, cold strong easterly wind. It blew all night but we were find with the door down. Wispy clouds still in the east.

Moved camp. Back up and down those gullies in low range again till we were back at the old camp. Hard to find our track on the shale rock and the Hema is only good when you go off the blue line!!

Drove around looking at other areas to try. The ‘mines’ marked on our map are mainly diggings in creeks and gullies rather than mine shafts. Mostly shallow alluvial gold around here.

Detected an area where there is signs of old pushings and a few shallow holes/shafts. Steve got a little one so we are ‘on the board’.

Set up camp next to a dry creek – hopefully a bit protected from the wind too.

He found another one after lunch. I kept working on my blog as I have so much to catch up on. If he starts finding heaps I will go and help him!!

After smoko I needed to charge the laptop so followed him to where he found the little one near some old shafts and had a wander around. Only found rubbish. I heard a shout from Steve and as looked around I saw he was on the next ridge waving his arms. Well at least he wasn’t ‘down’ a shaft!!

When I got over to him he was very excited about finding two bits right beside each other and he had two more targets. It was a spot on the top of a hill, covered in spinifex, not far off the track. I dug out the other targets for him which were gold too. As I bend easier we decided he would detect and I would dig and we had a great afternoon.  Our first ‘virgin’ patch – nobody has detected anywhere near this spot. We got 15 in total for 6 grams – so definitely a patch.

Back to camp as the sun was going down for a celebratory drink. Thanks Ray for guiding us this way. The wind stopped and it was just perfect temperature under a beautiful sky with gold in our pocket, what more could we want.

Had dinner then played a few games of Skipbo. The breeze picked up again by 9pm bringing the clouds back again. Closed the door again on the bed side so we were all good.