What an Adventure July 20.12

Wow the past two months have flown by. We have had a great time getting Zircons and now Garnett and Iolite and Epidote. The country out here is very beautiful and the weather has been quiet pleasant even a little too warm at times. Nights get very cold and down into the minuses but all in all not too bad if you come prepared.
We had travelled about 200km along the Plenty H way before trouble started to appear in the form broken water pump and boiling engine. We managed to get off the main road and up a side track to do some repairs. (Luckily we had a spare water pump) It took Adj a day and a half to fit it and get the car going again and then it was very slow going.  A very nice grader man gave us a tow back to his camp which was about 10km away. This took us an hour to get there.  We topped up with water and started a very slow limp back towards Gem Tree Caravan Park, stopping every 2 km to top everything up with water jumping in and making a dash for the next two km.

 When we reach the turn off for the Caravan Park a very nice man said he would tow the van into Alice for us. Adj went out and pick up the car the next day with a car trailer, it is now getting a new radiator, water pump and something done to the head-gasket cause it was warped. So we are going to be heading back down south along the bitumen and going to check out the York Peninsular for awhile with the in-laws.

We are in the Northern Territory in the harts Ranges looking for gem stones. We have been camped at a place call Mud Tanks looking for zircon. Here is a few pics of day to day life for us.

Harts Range Northern Territory

Hello again to all, we have now been out at the zircon fields at Mud Tanks off the Plenty Highway in the Northern Territory about 160north east of Alice Springs for the past six weeks and having a great time.

 Adrian is removing the mullock off the top of virgin soil. (ground that hasnt been dug before) There was a whole lot of this to be moved.

 Dad is sieving the gravel to remove the dirt so it can be washed and sorted.

 Mum washing the gravel in what is known as a Willoughby.

 Im flipping the sieve over to hopefully find a zircon on the top.

Yes we found a good stone or two and a whole heap that was not so good. We are now going to try our luck with the garnets just 20km up the road.