Fri, 12th August, 2022 Roy Hill Rest Area, south of Nullagine to Bush camp east of Nullagine, WA

Nasty - only 5.4 degrees at 6.45am so we turned the heater on as it is weigh-in day and it was too cold to take my clothes off! We still weigh-in once a week to make sure our weights are good.

Back on the main road, 98km to Nullagine. A small pool of water in the Fortescue River.

Past the old Roy Hill Station homestead area, now all part of the iron ore mine here.

Lots of new things to see since our last visit - pipelines, long conveyor lines, huge cranes building something - processing plant? It is pink! Lots of neat ore piles nearby.

Up and through the hills with more piles of ore or waste? On the other side of the hills is the mine village.

Lovely view of the flat topped hills to our left.

You can tell we are bout to go back onto the gravel by the colour of the bitumen on the other side.

Rolling through spinifex grass hills. Windy again. Across the Nullagine River which is dry and into town.

Nullagine, established in 1899, is only a very small town. Topped up with diesel at the 24hr BP pump for $2.559/L whereas the corner store has it for $2.79.

Had a cuppa in the park and chatted with two couples who have been out in the desert exploring. Topped up the water tank and set texts off to the kids so they know where we are headed - well approximately.

Onto the dirt road towards Mosquito Creek mining area. There are a few pending areas we can explore till they become live mining or exploration leases. We have a big area to cover with the four leases any case so hopefully we will be able to find something nice.

Turned off towards Little Lindens South mining area and through a burnt pending exploration lease which has been crawled over by the look of the chain marks and holes from detectorists. We went through a dry creek bed onto the first exploration lease we have permission for and found a spot to camp. We can wander for a long way from here so we decided to drop the camper off and explore. There is plenty of Snappy Gum lying about which is good firewood too. We can hear lots of budgies and finches but they hide well in the trees.

Drinks by the fire now the wind has settled.

The sun has set behind the hill then the moon rose up from behind another hill on the other side. There is a band of mackerel clouds coming over. Cool evening but not uncomfortable.