Tues, 25th June, 2019 Bush camp near Mosquito Creek, east of Nullagine, WA

6.30am 13 degrees, clear sky and no wind. Margaret’s birthday today so I will try and send her a text this afternoon if I can get a signal.

Drove out to an area which has been dry blown years ago. The musterers have been on this road a lot and there are big sections of bulldust. Glad we have air conditioning. There is an old shaker still there and down the very steep narrow track we found the remains of a shed and caravan. We stopped there to detect while Ray and Carol continued on to where they got their gold yesterday.

Steve got one bit up a creek but I only found rubbish. We moved along the track trying a few different places but no luck. Found Ray and Carol and had lunch with them. Ray had climbed up the steep hill and saw that the other side had been scraped. We went back along the track then drove up a wide creek which is also a short cut back to the main road. We turned off the track and wound our way up to the scrapes. How they got the machinery up here is amazing. Steve found 3 bits in the creek area but we got nothing off the scrapes.

Ray had also said someone had chained across the creek, which is too deep to cross here as it has been dug out for gold. We drove back along the track and found another track across the creek then meandered our way down to just past where Ray and Carol were on the other side.

We started detecting and as usual Steve went for a big walk. He came back with 3 bits so we moved the truck closer. They were just on the top edge of the deep creek in a section that had been burnt – this whole valley has only recently been burnt. Steve’s detector doesn’t like the ash so I went over it again with my 2300 and found 2 bits, one is a gram so we are very happy.

Had a cuppa then headed back. We stopped at the top of the steep hill where all the dry blown heaps were and Steve walked over to the top of the valley leading down to a creek. He got 3 bits and I got one nearby. The musterers zoomed by us in their bull catchers.

Back home through all the bulldust again. Spotted the bull catcher vehicles parked by the track as we turned onto our track back to the van.

Carol had signal in her van so I was able to send Margaret a text for her birthday. We will celebrate it when they get here.

NO PHOTOS TODAY.