After setting up camp we headed down the tracks with Don’s metal detector and David’s gold panning dish. We found a likely looking, mostly dry creek bed and set about looking for our fortunes. After a lot of fun and digging, we still didn’t quite reach that nugget (or bottle cap) that was probably just a few more millimeters below the bottom of our hole, but the light beat us. We’ll find it next trip.
The clouds cleared as the sun went down and we got our fire going. It was cold but a roaring fire certainly took the edge off it as the stars came out. David and Chris were taking some great astro photos and Chris also got some good shots of a possum that was obviously familiar with people and was trying to make off with our chips.
There is something very soothing sitting beside a fire on a cold dark clear night under the stars roasting marshmallows – with Mark and I sampling a couple bottles of port. Hard work - but someone has to do it! David and the boys spiced up the fire with assorted unnatural colours.
That’s the milky way in this shot – not smoke, taken with my mobile phone after a bit of coaching from David.
The next morning was cold and foggy but soon cleared to a glorious day. David still had plenty of wood to stoke up a good fire – with some air blower encouragement.
The dew was quite heavy overnight, so we left the tents to dry and headed out on the tracks.
There was quite a mixture of tracks to try but with the number of tracks criss-crossing the property we were able to pick and choose which tracks to try. Some were walked before heading down.
Mark’s mighty Patrol leading up a hill.
We stopped at an open hilltop area for a group shot - where we did a similar group photo about 5 years ago. Back in 2019 the park was in drought and the ground where this photo was taken was just bare dirt.
David’s new 300 series has picked up it’s first dent. Once again, an aluminum sidestep has come off second best with a rock.
A great trip to a park that we hadn’t visited for a few years, our thanks to David for leading it.
