After the camp was disassembled, we called in at the homestead in order to see the $30,000 worth of gold nuggets that the owner’s keeping for a rainy day (no, we didn’t pocket any of them).
The route home was down the Mouroubra Road to the east of Lake Moore, which necessitated a 50km blast further north up the Great Northern Highway before turning south onto the dirt. We detoured slightly to the Paynes Find Gold Battery, where they crush and process rocks for local gold prospectors. The place was shut but we utilised their gazebo for lunch.
Whilst a dirt tack, the Mouroubra Road is hard packed and fairly smooth, but it still felt a bit wrong to be doing 90kph on an unmade road. Momentary eyes off the road had us veering towards a white post, which necessitated a slight correction to the steering. Hank, following in the vehicle behind, enquired to our well being after witnessing the Land Rover’s somewhat sudden movement.
Our newly installed UHF radio wasn’t behaving on the rough stuff, dropping out when the going got bouncy, and we narrowed down the problem to the power feed. We’d used the power leads that fed our UK CB radio, but when you hit corrugations the power fluctuates widely, so there must be a problem with the live or the earth. We’ll investigate later, or run a new feed.
Once we reached tarmac we stopped to say our goodbyes as the guys were off back to Perth as they had jobs to go to tomorrow (except Hank, who’s retired), and we were heading west towards the Pinnacles in the Namburg National Park. We cannot thank Darryl, Brad, Will and Hank enough for their hospitality and good company, and we’ll have to make sure we return to Perth to see them all in the not too distant future.
We passed through Balidu, Bindi Bindi and made it as far as Moora, but as it was about 7pm and dark we decided we’d stop at the local caravan park for the night (we’re missing those long UK evenings...). SPOT
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