Wed, 7th Sept, 2016 Bush camp near Granite Hills Well, 45km E of Nullagine, WA

7am 21 degrees and no wind. By 8.30 though the wind was back and blowing from the West.

Headed off to explore a pending area and other areas to the north. Climbed up and down hills and in and out of dry Mosquito Creek.

Detected on the pending area but no gold. Doesn’t look like it has been worked much. Continued along the track to Fantasy Lease. At least he puts the lease area on his sign so there is no excuses about where you are allowed to go.

We drove up to the dwelling to say hello. Pierre and his partner (she is now retired nearer to Perth – getting too old for the heat she says) have had this lease for 26 years. They have been through cyclones and floods and this is the 3^rd dwelling he has built.

He has a lovely view over Mosquito Creek, the flats then the hills.

He invited us in and we chatted for an hour or so. We showed him the gold we found at Upper Mosquito Creek and he confirmed it is reef gold – straight off a gold reef. He doesn’t do much prospecting now but over the years he has pulled a lot of gold off his lease. It was like the Palmer lot, listening to his stories of who’s who and who’s doing what. He helped build the dwelling at the Upper MC camp and the big shed was to house an ultralight plane. The chap was Canadian and Pierre told him he didn’t have enough room to land but he took it up anyway and crashed into the creek when he ran out of room trying to land!! The big dry blower we saw on the lease near us was owned by a con-man paedophile who got people to invest in his gold lease but it never made any money. The police got him first for his other activities!! Pierre said that machine was for 100 tons/hour and there isn’t that much there to warrant that. Pierre’s machine did 4 tons/hour and that was sufficient.

Headed off again past ‘The Cathedral’.

We continued up a track beside a creek and found a shady tree for lunch. Miners had pushed the rocks out of the creek so we wandered around for a while with the detectors. Steve managed to find a little nuglet.

Kept following the track checking out side tracks along the way. Eventually we ended up at Mosquito Creek Goldfields and came out where Ziggy etc where camped. Drove down into the creek to see if Klaus and his mate were still there. He was and he was still working on bogging up his car so he can drive it on the road again – the police had pulled him over and were going to put it off the road. They don’t have a fridge etc – some people are amazing how they survive.

No one else was camped in the usual places so we headed up to Millionaire’s Gully to where Robert and Robyn had got some gold before they left. We wandered around their dig holes for a while and only Steve found one little nuglet. A motorbike drove up and it was Paul (who writes WA Gold books) that we met at Lindon’s Goldfields. He has been recording all the tracks in the area.

Stopped at ‘Internet Hill’ near the airstrip so I could get online and upload my blog and check emails, banking etc as I just can’t get enough signal back where we are camped.

Back down the road again to the turnoff and onto the main road. Pierre had said you can get phone signal at the Granite Hills and he was right but you have to perch on the side of the hill on the road which isn’t very safe for uploading blogs etc.

Back to camp again. Lucky we are up on our gold as today’s tally isn’t very good.

Jeff rang from Mt Flora where he was checking out a spot David & Majella told us about. No gold yet. He will start to head for home after that.

Another lovely evening as the wind has stopped and it is just beautiful watching the colours of the setting sun and then twilight.