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Week 3 started off a little slow.  It rained for 2 days, then a day of sun, then a 3rd day of rain.  You just can't drive the Aussie tracks when they're wet.  The camp held up well in the rain, no significant leaks.  Fortunately, I brought audio books and a Kindle so we kept entertained.  

All the clouds put our power grid to the test.  We had to use Paul's generator a couple times to top off the battery.  I'm including a photo of our power grid, looks like a soup sandwich. We're running about 200 watts of flexible solar panels into a 100amp hr Li-Ion battery.  With full sun running only the outback refrigerator, our battery stays fully charged.  At night with charging our equipment we drop about 1/4 of battery capacity.   We should have thought more about charging compatibility, as it stands we need 110AC for the laptop and 2way radios, cigarette lighter plugs for lights and USB for phones and GPS.  What a mess trying to keep it all functioning.  I had to rewire our cigarette lighter outlet bank, the wires fried somewhere along the line.  I'm ordering a backup tonight.  

We took the time to go into town and do laundry and take hot showers at the Caravan Park.  I ran my clothes through twice, I think the Aussie red dirt may be permanent on some of my stuff.  

We've been out doing real prospecting looking for new patches along the "line of strike".  We've been off the beaten path and as a precaution punch in the GPS coordinates of the truck.  Like Daniel Boone, I've never been lost, though a might bewildered a few times.  Just when I think I'm in unexplored territory, I find and old timer's campsite or dry-blower tailngs where he sampled the same zone.  Our only luck has been a few crumbs off old dry-blower zones.  Modern mechanized prospectors have often run a dozer over the old timer's tailings and scraped things to bedrock.  If there is some of original caprock left, we have a better chance of finding something.  

Paul has been off on a frolic of his own.  We don't expect to see him for another week, in the meantime Trent sold the caravan Paul was using.  Paul is homeless, I hope he doesn't repo his pop-up trailer that we're using.  Trent is thinking about moving our half of Camp Yank about 60k to the south to detect a new area said to have good gold.  It will be a challenge dividing up the campsite necessities and we'll miss nightly entertainment of Paul's crazy stories.  

Sunset from Downunder.  That's all for now.

 

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Oie happy birthday, that`s another shout on your tab...………….Make sure you drink my share Trent…………..

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Thanks for the update, Steve.

Powering all the stuff a prospector needs in the field is daunting...good thing you have a clue. I would not!

I am sure you will get over some big gold before you come home...at least I hope so.

fred

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wow what a crazy electrical extravaganza, I'm happy it's working for you guys. I have no doubt that you will find some good gold before you are done. Happy Birthday…now it starts getting really good.

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It doesn't rain in Australia ... at least WA ... well ... don't be overly focused on the gold.

Now that I'm back the few non-gold things I did are easier to tell people about than day after day prospecting.  Make some good memories.

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