MONDAY 12 JULY     GEMTREE

We had a lazy morning just sitting outside in the shade of the awning, reading.

After lunch, drove back to the Mud Tank zircon fields.

We tried further along on the flats, from where we were the other day, but found we didn’t have enough washing gear or water. There seemed to be a lot of clay sticking to the wash here, which made getting it clean enough difficult.  We did not find anything exciting, but John did get some tips from people working nearby.

I used the green rubber gloves we carry “in case”, today, to try to protect my fingernails a bit. Scrabbling around in stones is not kind to them. Found they turned my hands bright green – and it did not all wash off later! Lucky that we are not too “upmarket”, here.

We drove around and explored the Zircon Hill area, near the vermiculite mine. Drove 41kms today.

Tea was soup, oven baked frozen fish and French fries.

The fuel bowser is still out of action. We will need to conserve fuel, since we have to go to Alice on Friday, and they don’t know when it will be fixed. This is a vindication of John’s policy of always carrying 25 litres of fuel, in the plastic jerrycan in Truck. One cannot always rely on fuel being available, and where there is only one outlet for some distance this can create problems. Bowsers break down. The fuel delivery truck is held up. An unexpectedly large number of travellers require fuel. These things happen.