FRIDAY 26 MAY     OPALTON

The day started out with a dull morning, but cleared, partly, later. The night rain was over.

I was very surprised at how dry the things under the spinifex roofed shelter had stayed, during the heavy rain of the night. It is very effective. It made a real difference, having a larger than usual expanse of dry ground for our outside living area, out there.

The spinifex-roofed shelter was surprisingly waterproof

We spent some time fine tuning the camp – sieving ash from the campfire (the gem fossicking sieves were handy), setting up water in the big wash up bowl to settle the sediment, arranging the “furniture”.

We walked out into the nearby mullock heaps – a very short walk away – and noodled for a while. This consisted of scrabbling solidified dirt away from a selected area of heap and watching closely to see if any “colour” was unearthed in this way.

I found a fair sized piece of bright green opal, in a little “pipe” formation. I was actually walking around a low heap at the time and the angle of the sun was causing a green light to shine through it onto the ground, and it was that which caught my eye. I was just in the right place at the crucial minute or so – it was right on the surface of a heap. I wondered how many times it had been overlooked before. Beginner’s luck! I hope it will eventually cut into something really nice because the colour appears superb.

After lunch, we went back out again. Found some “fairy dust” pieces – little colour speckles in rock.

Mullock heaps by our camp

When we’d had enough of scrabbling around in the dirt, drove a little way to the south, about 4kms, across Sandy Creek, which had a couple of fair sized waterholes in it, still.

I find it interesting how the general aridity of this sort of country enhances the attractiveness of any water feature that occurs. A little creek or water hole becomes somehow “special”, and noteworthy in a way that it would not be in an area where surface water is more abundant.

Fetched wood for our fire. There was plenty of that, lying about.

Sandy Creek waterhole

Back at camp, I paid M for two of her gem trees – the one I had selected for us and another, mounted on a gidgee base, for P and K for Xmas. That will be a challenge to pack when we send off our presents!

L from the Outpost came round to see how we’d settled in. He said the young couple with the baby apparently left about 1am this morning, when the rain was heavy. It would have sounded even worse on the tin roof of their shelter and I guess they got worried about being able to make it out in their conventional car.

Tea was savoury mince and potato.

THURSDAY 25 MAY   WINTON TO OPALTON   129kms

It took us a while to get away from Winton this morning. We had to get gas bottles filled, stock up on water, and batten down the van contents for somewhat rough dirt road travel.

Refuelled at the Caltex Depot – 83cpl. Also filled up the two jerry cans, which had been empty since last year.

Went to the Post Office and arranged for the mail that was awaiting at Cloncurry for us to collect, to be sent here to Winton. Apparently, there is a full bag!

Then we did a top up of groceries and went to get some meat from the butcher. Whilst I was in there, John came in and asked the butcher if he had any meat scraps suitable for yabby bait. A very attractive looking fellow customer asked him where he was going yabbying and John replied somewhere out around Opalton. She was interested by that; turned out that she and her partner have a claim near Opalton, at Devil Devil and she invited us out there to have a look at the operation. We arranged to meet her at the Outpost store next Thursday, when the mail vehicle comes in.

It was midday when we left Winton. We ate lunch in Truck, going along.

It took us over two hours to get to Opalton, taking it easy with the van. It travelled well and very little got disarranged inside. John noticed altered handling with the extra weight of the jerry cans on the van back – we have never had that before – and with the full water tanks.

Mulga and spinifex country around Opalton

M and husband B seemed pleased to see us – and maybe rather surprised that we had come, after all.

It took us a while to set up camp, with the van beside a bough shelter, under which we set up the camp gear – camp stove, Chescold fridge, table and chairs. We had the best of both worlds! There was a stone fireplace built nearby too.

Camp set up at Opalton Bush Camp

There was some piped water to the Bush Camp – from a nearby dam, filled by a windmill pump. B told us it is heavily sedimented but that it can be cleared for dishwashing and the like by using ash from the fire to “flock” it. Maybe by tomorrow we would have some ash. It would be useful if we could conserve the better van water for cooking and drinking.

Our camping here cost the princely sum of $2 a night! There are amenities in an Atco building, with flush toilets and cold showers.

It was nearly dark by the time all was organized. There was enough of a breeze to prevent mosquitoes, but a cloud build up that could mean rain. On yesterday’s drive, John saw a long line of black ants crossing the road; he reckons that means rain is coming.

I cooked tea outside, on the new Coleman stove we had not used before – it was excellent to use. Tea was chicken noodle soup, hamburger in toast, and a pear for dessert.

We stayed outside to eat tea, sat by a small fire in the fireplace for a while, then went in and read for a while. The nights here would have to be early to bed, to conserve the 12volt power in the van. The solar panel does seem to be working but to date, existing for any time on the system is untried.

There were four other lots of campers here – caretakers M and B, a French couple who were here the other day and have been for over a week, someone in an older van who arrived after us, and a couple with a young baby who arrived last night and are camping in a tin shed here, who seem not at all prepared for camping out.

There were spits of rain early in the evening and heavy rain at times during the night.

We went to bed about 9pm. It was great to be camped out in the bush again.

The gidgee wattle that was in the bush around us was smelling in the rain – the “Stinking Wattle” so called.

To Opalton