OK...we've done everything else but look for this "Yellow Stuff"...so....lets go fishin'......nope...Allright out with the pans....the river looks so inviting just up around the corner from where we camped and there's Weeping Willows hanging over the water and river stones forming a mini rapid.....gosh...did I mention that we were really liking this place more with each passing moment?? We grabbed our gold pans and a shovel...well a small one...and our folding stools and set off for the river bends....working on the theory that gold washed down stream will be deposited on the bend....right??....What would we know, we're motel managers.....Right?? Oh what the heck...for now, we're gold prospectors and we feel lucky...like all those who were here over a hundred years ago in search of their fortunes.

So...we dig a shovel full of river rocks and gravel and chuck it in the pan and wash it out and pick out the gold....Right??.....Hmmm...no gold in that pan...oh well...can't expect to strike it rich every pan....So we dug and washed and we dug and washed and we dug and washed.....and we got ............tired. So pick up all the gear with our remaining strength and stroll the stroll of luckless prospectors and have a nice hot shower in our rolling mansion and pour a consoling cold one or 6......with ice.

Look at the size of those T-Bones

Who Cares if we didn't find any gold???

Over a few drinks and a great T-Bone...hot buttered corn on the cob and some yummy left over Bubble and Squeak from last nights feast, we took stock of our place on the globe. We have a caravan set up so we can turn sunlight into energy to charge our batteries and if the sun don't shine...our Honda EU20i Generator will run the installed 35 Amp battery charger to keep the 190 L 2 door fridge/freezer running and the lights and 2 water pumps. So the food should last us a month...if we run out, we just drive 7 k's into Bingara to the IGA open 7 days a week...even sells booze. We have a dump point for the Thetford Loo in town at the show grounds and we have 4 X 82 Litre water tanks to shower and wash up and drink and make ice cubes with. If we were careful that would last us around a week or 10 days.

Now we're having a month off and a week here would be like eating just one salted peanut at cocktail hour.

There's millions of litres of water flowing past us every day, so if we conserve our water in the 4 tanks for drinking and ice cubes only, we should be able to stay for 2 months. So that means we use the river water for showers and washing up. We then set up the water filter/steralization system and started bucketing water from the river into our 110litre collapsible tank. This sit on the ground near the draw bar and we just turn off all the tank taps and open the suction line taps and drop a hose into the tank and draw our washing and showering water from there with the standard plumbing in the van.

When our stay here is at an end, we simply fold up the tank and pack it away in the storage bin.
 

110 Litre Collapsible Water Tank

What a beautiful sunset.... yep...It don't get any better than this...