Getting ready for the trip north

---

Yesterday was spent preparing for our trip to the outback. After a leisurely breakfast Paul gave us an extensive concert of music on the clarinet. Unlike his daily practice sessions, he played to a CD backing track. This really augmented the quality of his playing and he has an amazing repertoire of music that he plays from classical through popular, big band and swing. He played for over an hour and the two of us were his audience. In the words of 'Dire Straights' 'The boy can play'! And the best bit is that he really enjoys his instrument.

When the concert ended I called Scott at the camping trailer hire company at Jandakot some 12km south of Perth. Scott informed me that the camping trailer was ready to go so Paul and I drove town to Jandakot to collect the trailer. With the exception of one missed turn-off, Paul navigated me to the rental depot where Scott was busy with another customer. This gave us a chance to have a look around the showroom at the latest display models of camping trailers. These trailers open out into large, multi-room tents with a bedroom, living area and awnings. They have lighting, gas cookers, fridges, water storage and all sorts of essential for serious bush camping.

Scott showed us the trailer, how to open up the tent part and key features. It was an older model but appeared to be clean and tidy. We also rented an Engel refrigerator and solar power pack to drive it. Once the paperwork was completed we hooked up and were soon on the road back to Attadale.

Whilst Paul and I were away, Hazel and Maria went out to the local Woolworths to buy things for dinner. Hazel planned to cook paprika pork and rice for dinner.

The rest of the day was spent packing and preparing. All the water tanks needed to be cleaned and filled. I went off to fuel up the Pajero.

Getting the right items of equipment selected for a full week's trip to the bush was not a simple matter. The outback is not an environment with which we have any experience. Furthermore the place to which we were going is 100kms from the nearest shop and over 40kms from the nearest asphalt road. Equipment needed to cover:


• food and comfort
• safety and communications
• gold prospecting gear



M&C very kindly offered to supply the prospecting gear - the main item of which are two Minelab 4500 detectors complete with digging equipment. They also offered to look after food supplies for the whole party. Because they spend much of the year prospecting out in the bush, we valued this offer. They know what foods work best in terms of storage, nutrition and cooking aspects. I understand that they do most of their cooking on an open fire.

As part of the WA mining regulations, Hazel and I both needed to have a 'Miner's Right'. This cheap and easily-obtained licence gives the holder the right to prospect for gold across open and un-assigned public land across a massive area of Western Australia. It also assigns the right to camp and live on public land, to make a camp fire and to keep all gold found - up to a weight of 40 kilos. I bought these certificates on-line some weeks before departure and scanned the original certificates so that I could print them onto credit-card sized plastic ID cards. Easier to carry and far more resilient than a paper document. So we are both officially Australian gold miners and part of an historical tradition that goes back to 1853.

In terms of safety equipment, we required 80 channel UHF walkie-talkies, GPS units, sun protection, first aid, water. I was able to the UHF units on-line and have them shipped to Marias. The purchase was actually an amusing process. UHF CB is used across Australia and NZ as a communication tool. It's much cheaper than satellite phone and offers person-to-person and vehicle-to-vehicle conversation over various distances. The bandwidth is split into 80 channels with most channels open to all users and some reserved for emergency, travellers or DX (ling-distance relay).

A recent change of specification meant that there was a shortage of second-hand hand-held units on the market so I searched for new sets. I managed to find a supplier who had a large range of models and one model in particular grabbed my attention. However it was the price which surprised me most - AUD 0.0 including delivery and tax. Yes a price of nothing on the on-line store. It was such a good offer that I completed the purchasing process at the end of which I was invoiced for AUD 0.0. The on-line store even sent me a nice e-mail and receipt thanking me for my order. A few days passed and I was beginning to wonder if the order really had processed. Then I got a one-line e-mail saying the order had been cancelled and a full refund of AUD 0.0 given.

It looked like the store administrator had listed the items without a price in error and then simply cancelled my order when they realised that they had screwed up. I was not totally surprised but it did get me out of the moral dilemma of feeling I had gained from somebody else's error.

A trawl through the list of Australian suppliers identified other suitable models and I soon found a replacement model that ticked all of the boxes - amazingly with the same supplier. It was not free but was a very good deal on a 2w model with a 7km range and a box of free extras. I bought these and had them shipped to Attadale to await my arrival.

I bought two new GPS units. One was a lightweight Garmin E-trex and the other a Bushnell Backtrack which I felt would keep Hazel safe from wondering off in the bush. It simply shows distance and direction back to camp or to a marked reference point.

My unit needed to be more complex to prevent me wandering into adjoining prospecting tenements, to mark finds and to track my progress whilst out scanning for gold.

---