Sat, 30th Sept, 2017 Windsor Rest area, between Sandstone & Mt Magnet to Friar’s Mine, 30km east of Cue, WA

7am 15 degrees, clear sky, cold wind. Veronica’s birthday – will have to send her a message when we get phone reception again.

Someone has started a pile of rocks and others are adding a rock with their name on it. There are lots of ‘things’ around – like teddy bear trees etc that people then take a photo and past on Facebook.

Went up to the pending area for a detect but it wasn’t very good ground so we headed back out. Stopped at what used to be a well but obviously was widened out at one stage – possibly by the Main Roads as there a couple of capped bore pipes nearby. The water is crystal clear but there is lots of green weed on the bottom. It is fenced off to keep out the animals.

Into Mt Magnet for lunch – we have explored here before. Rang Bob and Margaret as he had detected near Cue so we might go there. Looking forward to catching up with them in December. Claude got onto his mate for his directions to where he was detecting near Lake Austin (between here and Cue). Filled up the fuel tank and headed 80km north to Cue.

The park we stopped in last year has had a make-over but we didn’t stop for a look – on the way out we will.

Here’s one of those teddy bear trees I mentioned before.

30km east we turned off into Webb’s Patch. Found a spot with good salt and pepper (quartz & ironstone) ground near Friar Mine (huge main made hill so there must be an open cut hole on the other side) and decided to stop here for the night. Strong wind is still blowing but it feels a lot warmer.

Webb’s Patch Mine is actually further south so Steve and I went for a drive to check it out. A lot more shallow diggings around here and it is all pending ground so we can camp. Saw two cars so went to say hello. Three chaps escaping their wives for a detecting holiday. We will move down this way tomorrow. On our way back we spotted three donkeys – one looked like a baby – near the old windmill. Shame I didn’t have my camera.

We have phone reception here and Jon rang to say Elton John is playing to 27,000 people at Cazalys so they can here it all from their deck. I couldn’t quite hear it through the phone but he was playing Bennie and the Jets at that time.

The wind chilled off so we didn’t linger after drinks as we didn’t bother with a fire tonight. Turned on the gas for a hot shower – haven’t done that in a long time.

Working our way through the movies on our hard drives – boy, some are so bad!!