Mon, 22nd Apr, 2019 Bush camp near Kurnalpi, east of Kalgoorlie to Bush camp near Yerilla, east of Menzies, WA

6.30am 10 degrees, on with the heater. Clear sky and no wind.

7am van up to 16 degrees which was good as it was weigh in day – scales were very cold!

Packed up camp. Brian and Kerry are going back to Kalgoorlie to do their sightseeing and hopefully we will see them again further north so they can do more detecting with us.

We headed back along the road to the intersection north of Kanowna then headed north east. Got phone reception and a text came through from Mark and Heidi with a picture of a nice nugget he found near Malcolm Dam.

Stopped for a cuppa at Gindalbie – nothing much left of another old gold mining town except for some rubbish like this old bottle and an old bricked well – now full of more rubbish.

The road is good as we continued north east. Got to Yarri and had lunch at the ‘Pub’.

Steve and Ray checked out access to a couple of areas Ray has permission for but they couldn’t work out how to get onto them with the vans. Decided to continue on to the other lease near Yerilla which is north-west of here, not far from Kookynie.

We passed some big open cut mines with their ‘hills’ then passed Welsh’s Find Mine which had water tanks etc near this house – it was probably the Mine Manger’s home.

Turned onto the Yarri-Kookynie Road which is narrower than the other one but still in good condition.

Entered Yerilla Station where we spotted 4 emus running along the fence-line. Arrived at the homestead to let the pastoralist know we were camping nearby but the gate was locked. Must have gone away for Easter.

Found a track up to the lease and a nice open area to camp near some old shafts. Lost our radio aerial somewhere – it never worked properly so will have to look for another one somewhere.

Warmer afternoon – up to 24 degrees. Opened up a couple of windows and the roof vents.

After a cuppa Steve and I went for a wander with our detectors across to the shafts. Lots of rubbish. I  gave up and went back for my camera. Where there was an old shaft someone has dug a trench alongside it obviously testing to see if there is any more gold there.

Further over I found some water still lying in the creek which has a hard rock bottom.

Didn’t need my detector to find this old belt buckle.

Found Steve near another pool of water and a track across to some more shafts that we will explore tomorrow. 

Steve had lots of flies hitching a ride on his back as we walked back. How he survives without a fly-net I don’t know – I certainly couldn’t. He gives in sometimes but with his glasses the net upsets his vision.

Found a nice horseshoe – hopefully it will bring us some good luck.

Carol’s down with the flu now so we had our drinks in our van so she could rest in theirs. We played a few games of Skipbo as the sun set and so did the temperature. Closed the van up again and cooked dinner then watched our movies – so glad we have our hard drives full of movies and TV series.