Sun, 9th June, 2019 Bush camp south of Eastern Creek to Bush camp near Mosquito Creek, east of Nullagine, WA

7am 21 degrees, overcast with strong wind. A few spits of rain have fallen and the sky is dark in the south east. 10mm was forecast so we decided to pack up and go around to Mosquito Creek as this area wasn’t producing too much gold.

We were 15min too late and got caught in the rain which of course made the road muddy in places. Just as the rain washed off the dust the mud clods flew up onto the bonnet – poor Pat.

Parked up near Dave’s camp and raced into our vans for a cuppa till the rain eased. Played a game of Skipbo and Steve had such a run it was over in 10 minutes.

Moved the vans a bit further over and set up as the rain had stopped. Lots of burnt ground to the west of us.

There are lots of Sturt Desert Pea plants growing on the burnt ground so we should have lots of lovely flowers soon.

I plugged in the phone to the aerial in the van and got 3G so texts started coming through. One was from Leanne and Rick checking to see how we were going. They have sold their van but hopefully we will catch up with them somewhere again.

I tried ringing Mum and got through. They are enjoying the French Open in tennis. The Aust girl just won the women’s final and they have the men’s final tonight.

I tried the internet dongle but couldn’t get reception so we took the big aerial off the truck and put it on a long pole but still no signal. Tried a few places around the van but no good. Checked the phone and it had lost signal. The sky has half cleared so maybe I only got the reception because of the heavy cloud. Dave has a ‘Yowie’ booster on his van so we can got over there and get reception if we need it.

After lunch Steve went and filled up the truck with firewood. I went for a wander with my detector over the burnt area nearby. I was rewarded with a tiny little bit.

We can get bore water for showers from the pastoralist’s cattle trough tank just down the road. There is an overflow pipe we can use but it only has a small solar panel so you need good sun to get the pump to work well. Will try tomorrow when the sky is clearer.

Steve built a nice fireplace again which we sat around for drinks with our fly swats as it was too early for the flies to go to bed yet!

Cooked dinner in the camp oven as Steve got it out now we are set up for a while. Will heat the shower water on the fire again to make the gas last longer.

Spotted 5 satellites zooming across the beautiful star spangled sky. Quite cool once we walked away from the fire so closed up the van and headed in for dinner and showers.