Tues, 9th July, 2019 Bush camp near Upper Mosquito Creek Mining Centre, east of Nullagine, WA

7.30am 13.7 degrees, clear sky and no wind. Russell’s 60^th birthday today. Hope he celebrates it in style. Sent him a text via Valerie.

Packed lunch and headed back towards Nullagine then north through leases. Crossed a wider section of Mosquito Creek twice while we wound through big hills. Came to where we could see where Millennium Mining have an active mine up in the hills. All their exploration pushes have been up and over the hills around here to the gold must be in the hills rather than on the flats.

We took another track and detected in a creek and up big exploration pushes but only found rubbish.

Followed the track further along and stopped in a more open area by a creek. I found a little bit of gold straight away on the edge of the creek then Steve got one in the creek. Kerry and Brian wandered further down the creek but no joy.

After lunch we continued working the creek. Steve walked down below where the truck was parked and got a nice one near the creek then another one just beside it. Two more appeared in the schist in the creek itself. I joined him and got three near where Steve got his first two. Steve called for Kerry to come closer so they worked on the bank and finally got a little bit of gold – prickly so hadn’t travelled far compared to Steve’s flat, smooth, clean bits.

Had a cuppa then headed back via another track heading towards the hand pump which is on the edge of Mosquito Creek near the main road. As we crossed another section of Mosquito Creek there was a nice waterhole.

There are heaps of these big anthills everywhere – mostly on the side of the hills.

We filled up our buckets from the water tank near the hand pump then walked over to show Kerry how the hand pump works. A couple, Ray and Denise, from Bundaberg are camped there so we had a chat. Denise had got the travelling jeweller to make her a ring using the little nuggets Ray found in Cue. Very nice – I think I might get one of these. They haven’t had any luck around here yet.

Back home as the sun set so got the fire and our drinks out for another evening chatting. 6pm 25 degrees in the van. Mostly a windless day but occasionally a big gust of wind would whistle through.

Weighed our gold – icecream for us tonight, we have lowered our goal so we can have icecream as the big nuggets aren’t coming in too fast.