Thurs, 5th May, 2016 Bush camp on hill, 50km south of Meekatharra, WA

5am 22 degrees and the storm is back. Lightning and thunder but only light rain.

8am still rumbling in the distance and another bit of drizzle.

Sun came out so after a cuppa Steve headed back to Nannine Township to see how Jeff is going and have a detect himself.

I got a view from a yellow bus and its driver, Nathan. Steve had seen the bus down near the workings yesterday and another couple wandering around detecting too. Nathan is from Derby, WA and has been here a few times always finding a bit of gold. He had headed back into Meeka last night to see his friend. He said it bucketed down and they are forecasting more rain in the north so he decided to come back here.

Steve back for lunch with no gold but had a great time chatting with other couples who were there detecting – they hadn’t found anything as yet. No one seems to work that it has a mining lease over it. They say as long as you don’t go near any place where they are actually mining the company doesn’t worry too much. Steve likes to do things correctly so we might call into the Blue Bird Mine and enquire.

Steve went back to where he found his little bits for another go and to find Nathan for a chat. I put on a CD of love songs that Sarah had compiled many years ago while I worked on the big day exploring Meeka. At last got it all done.

Dark clouds covering the sun at 4.30 so I got the fire going ready for the bushcooker tonight.

Happy Steve back with a 0.7 nugget so we have a total of 2 grams now – slowly building.

We could see rain in the west and east so hopefully it won’t head our way and put out the fire.

While I was getting the vegies ready Steve saw two bit forks of lightning come down in the east then the rumble of thunder, still a way off. The wind is blowing east to west so the smoke is going right through the van!! Then the rain started, just enough to get us up, fold up the chairs etc and put a few more logs on the fire to keep it going. Stood for 5 minutes then it was over and the stars started appearing.

Pork chops and sausages and vegies were cooked beautifully and then we tried the cheesecake – yum yum. The Scotch Fingers had softened so it was easy to cut into wedges. I put the rest in containers and into the freezer so we can have a treat every now and then. We have been doing our weigh-ins on Mondays and have both still be losing weight so don’t want to overdo the yummies!!

Lovely and warm 25 degrees and now the wind has completely stopped – bit eerie actually. Like the calm before the storm. Couple of lightning flashes still in the west as we went to bed.