Sat, 28th Sept, 2024 Gwalia Museum RV Camp, near Leonora to Bush camp off Nambi Road, Leonora, WA

The sun is shining, blue sky and puffy white clouds. Min of 11.6 degrees and cold breeze. Prediction of only getting to 20 degrees today with the cold wind.

Gary and Cheryl are going to join us for a couple of days to see what this ‘detecting’ life is about. We packed up and drove into Leonora to top up the water and diesel then headed through town to Nambi Road. I had checked the road conditions and this one was open - the others are still under ‘caution - no vehicles over 3 tonnes’. We drove past the Rifle Range which has camels and horses roaming around it! One horse was on this side of the fence.

There is a new pending lease so we headed there. There are a few old mine shafts around the Mount Germatone Mine (on the map) - one is called Lucky Lena, that should be a good sign.

We found a nice open area for us and the others with their vans to set up.

After lunch we went wandering. Gary stayed in camp as the AFL grand final was on and he had his satellite set up to be able to watch it. Cheryl came with me and was in charge of the pick and scoop. I said to take off her rings etc. I found a target but as she dug it out we realised her metal drink bottle was making the detector scream so she took that back and got rid of more metal things she had. We found some targets that she dug out but they were rubbish which mostly went onto the magnet on the end of the pick. Something strange was happening though as there was still a signal in the scoop when there was only dust on the next one that I then checked. I thought it was her zipper of her coat setting off the detector. We tried the next target and as she eliminated the dirt I thought I saw a little glint of gold so pulled it out of the scoop. When she checked the scoop the sound was still in there. Again we got down to just dust and I asked again that if she had forgotten a bracelet or something and then she remembered the metal plate in her wrist - what a laugh. I then put the little rock back in the scoop and got her to check it with her left hand and it was a nice little bit of gold. Her first piece, so we made a big smiley face.

Unfortunately that was the only one we found - did a lot of cleaning up Australia though. We went back to show Gary so I weighed it, 0.15g and put it in a little display box for her. She was tickled pink.

The AFL was over and Brisbane Lions won which Gary was pleased about.

We all walked over, except Bob as he has his mobility scooter to get him around now his knees are playing up, to check out the shafts as they went down the side of the slope from the hill. They were quite deep and some were just open cuts that have been dug out. We didn’t go all the way down to the Lena one. There are some other people camped down that way.

Got the fireplace set up and settled around it with our drinks while swatting the flies away.

It was quite chilly once the sun set so we headed inside for dinner, 7pm 16 degrees and the camper is still closed up!

Curled up under my little blanket while we watched a movie - should have put the heater on!