Kooked at Kunanalling

22 - 28th October

Well I am some 3 months and 4 trips behind in my blog writeups, so as I sit by the pool here in Bali, (yep, no dust or flies to worry about here), then it's best I get onto updating my stuff hey!

It was always going to be tough. Late October and a trip to the Goldfields. It was probably going to be hot, dusty and full of flies. So Sunday morning I met Warren in Mundaring and off we headed for Coolgardie.

Doing the long stretch between Southern Cross and Coolgardie, I couldn't believe my luck - yep more bloody wide loads

But we got around them pretty easily and plugged on. It looked like lots of rain was falling to the North and South of the highway, but on the highway, apart from a small shower, we seemed to miss it all. That said, there was quite a bit of water on the road, so we only just missed it.

It seemed like forever, but we finally hit Coolgardie, then headed North to a spot I had checked out on tenegraph before we left. Travelling up the Coolgardie North Road, you could hear half the road surface beIng transplated to the side of the vehicle. It was certainly a bit slushy and slippery. But we found out turn off for our predetermined camp.

Unfortunately, Google Earth in this part of the world isn't real current. What looked to be lightly vegetated country ended up being the opposite. It was heavilly wooded and this in itself posed some issues just getting up the track to out camp. As it was, I had to chainsaw a few offending bits out of the way. Then to make matters worse, we couldn't get up the trackTo our camp due to vegetation. So we spied a small spot that we thought we could all fit into and set to work getting camp set up for the week.

But set up we did and we had a quiet night by the fire, ready for some prospecting in the morning.

Well best laid plans go astray. After a very easy morning, stuffing around with coffee, then eventually some breakfast, Warren and myself sat under a tree in the shade gas bagging for quite a while. Warren and myself had only met for the first time up at Mundaring on the way here, so we had some stuff to chat about.

My mate Steve was coming to spend the week with us today. He was coming from Bunbury. I was just hoping he could navigate his way to our camp. By about lunchtime, I was in the couldn't be arsed in pulling out the detector mode, so Warren and myself cracked a beer and talked some more BS. About 1400 I suggested to Warren we should hike the 2km's out to the main road to see if we can get Steve on the phone - we had no coverage at camp. I was a bit worried Steve might not be real keen on abusing his new 200 series down the tight bush track.

Well it seemes like no time had passed, but we got out to the main road and found we did have some coverage.

With some luck, we got a few broken calls into Steve and let him know both where we were and what to expect. So Warren and myself being out of beer, we hiked back to camp and chilled out until Steve arrived:

Late afternoon Steve arrived and we discussed how all 3 of us would fit into camp. I moved over so Steve had somewhere to put his gazebo. Although I Carried one with me, with the limited space we had to play with, it just seemed easier for me to use the awning instead.


An awesome night by the bush tele, we retired for the prospect of some yellow in the morning.

Tuesday morning arrives and the ritual of stuffing around with coffee and breakfast takes place yet again. Steve is keen as mustard to get his 5000 on the ground and is into it well before myself. Warren, not being a prospector per'se became Steve's pick boy.

I wasn't real happy with the look of the ground. It consisted of soft loamy top soil, obviously deposited In times of heavy water flow. There was no rock, quartz/ironstone whatever to speak off and to be perfectly honest, it wasnt auiferous in my uneducated mind. But I pulled the 4500 out of the bag and gave it a crack.

I suppose the one advantage of this ground was the lack of rubbish to be found. Every now and then we found evidence of old cattle mens camps, broken bottles and bully beef cans, but they were few. Not like a lot of places where metalic junk keeps you busy all day.  We did stumble across one little pit and the only piece of quartz found so far. Discarding the large lump as nothing of worth, Steve ran the 5000 over it and it gave off a slight signal....you bastard, that was mine!

So some time was spent busting it up, but no colour was to be found. Obviously just mineralisation of some description.

The surrounds of the pit was obviously a large camp at some stage. A railway Used to run through here, maybe the camp wasn't From cattlemen, but gangers??? anyway, we found a few old Bits of interesting stuff:

So it was getting close to lunch and we headed back to camp where I had the find of the trip; an old tag that once belonged to a Dodge trayback truck:

What a piece of history that was, along with a couple of other small finds:

Once home I did some digging on Winterbottoms. I found a superb photo of their premises thanks to the WA Museum:

And a small piece from RACWA that's worth repeating:

After lunch, I couldn't be arsed, so I just followed Steve and Warren around. I think I had set myself to believe the ground was useless so I couldn't see the point dragging the detector around. Even just walking around, I was struggling, so I decided to head back to camp for a bit of a clean up. feeling a million bucks after a shower, I went downhill later that afternoon and evening. I just felt lethargic as hell and sat with my head in my hands. About 2000, I wandered off to bed without dinner, hoping I could sleep off whatever lurgy was making me feel pretty ordinary.

Felling a little better on Wednesday morning, after the coffee ritual, we headed out with detectors in tow. A couple of hours on the ground and we all came to the descision we were wasting our time here. So I checked my maps and found I had some ground marked a bit further out near Ora Banda. At about 1100, we decided to break camp and shift for different ground.

Via the old Kunanalling Hotel:

Finding a track heading up to the patch, we drove around a bit and found a suitable place to park up. The ground here looking far more promising: quartz and ironstone littered the ground. Salt and pepper - yeah!

Thursday morning dawned and I was now feeling much better. Moving camp on the Wednesday was hard work I tell you.

Running the detectors over the ground for a few hours, we returned to camp empty handed. The wind was starting to pick up, and the longer we sat in camp, the worse it got. It got to the point it was useless to go out again. It got so bad, I couldn't even cook dinner, so I had bickies and dip for sustenance. You have to see the vid to understand just how bad it really was. Another day written off.

Friday dawned and the wind had finally abated, somehow we all survived the night with little damage - I still cant believe my awning withstood the pace. Little did Warren know, but I knew today was Warren's 65th birthday - so Steve and myself went over and gave him 65 all the bests. So our last day on the ground and we got the detectors swinging. Coming back to camp empty handed (as per usual), we collected timber. Tonight was going to be special. A baked dinner from the camp oven for Warrens birthday.

And a brilliant dinner it turned out to be too. Warren even supplied apple pie for desert.


Saturday morning dawned. We were sort of over it by now, it had been a very unproductive trip. Up early, packed and back on the road for home, Warren and myself said goodbye to Steve at Merriden, and Warren and myself parted company in Midland.

Whilst it was not as planned, I'm sure we all enjoyed the company and a week in the bush. This prospecting business still eludes me......Grrrrr.



Trip Stats:

6 nights under canvas
1408km travelled
176L fuel used
for an average of  12.5 L/100Km
cost of fuel $228
9.5L of water used
17 beers, 1 cask of red and 5 cans of lemon soft drink consumed
camp fees nil


With an overnighter at Yanchep (not reported) and Sandy Cape in the last entry, the nights under canvas tally stands at 36.


And the trip vids:

Squeezin in at Sandy

September 15-17

Watching the weather during the week, it wasn't looking too promising. However, Thursday night, Leo and myself decided we would head for Sandy Cape on Friday afternoon and take the risk of the now predicted light showers and just live with it. Leo got off work early on Friday and I met him on the road about 1430. The plan was to head up to Jurien, have dinner at the pub, move onto the campsite afterwards and just take what comes from there.

Discussing the weather over the radio, I asked Leo to put his money where his mouth is. A pint was no on the offering for me should it rain. I would be buying if it didn't. Leo also wanted to play a game: how many cops would be see on the way up. Another pint on offer to the one who scores correctly. Against my better judgement, I elected 2, Leo, 4.

We arrived in Jurien about 1700. A slow trip up, we got stuck behind a line of half a dozen vehicles following a booze bus doing its legal speed of 100Km/h. Being the cops, no one would overtake it....go figure! which meant we had a leisurely stroll up the highway for about an hour. Time being on our side, it wasn't an issue anyway. But with 2 cops seen, I was feeling pretty chuffed - a free pint was coming my way. Winning!

Leo having never been north of Lancelin, I showed him a few bits of Jurien. It was way too early for dinner and we had some time to kill. But after an hour or so at the boat ramp, the sun getting closer to setting, we decided to forego the pub dinner, buy something to cook for tea at the local IGA and head on out to camp in time to watch the sun set over the ocean. And a good idea that was too. Leaving town, we were tested by the slow moving booze bus. The female copper laughed when I told her we had been stuck behind her for the last hour.....Oh the irony.

Arriving at Sandy Cape, the place was heaving. It just seems to be getting more popular as time goes on. I guess, with the restrictions Dandaragan Shire has put on free camping on the coast, then the very few legal places to go will only get busier. We managed to squeeze into a spot for the night, a mere 50m from the beach:

As is quite often the case in a public campground, you have no choice over your neighbours. A large group across the road was carrying on a bit, swearing, driving around all night and just generally being a pain for others. The neighbours in the van next to us made some comments about them earlier on to us. All in all, it could have been far worse than it was. By 11pm, with a few beers and reds under the belt, we retired for the evening. Not a bad effort for me, seeing as I had been up since 0330.

I was woken about 0600 in the morning. The sounds of Leo snoring and the dew raining down on my swag had pushed the bladder into action. Peeling back the covers of the swag revealed a pretty amazing sight:

Fog. And wasn't it thick:

I took a stroll down the beach with the camera. You couldn't see either the South nor the North heads:

Killing time for an hour or so, Leo decided to raise his weary head. The underside of both our awnings were as wet as their tops. So we had a slow relaxing morning, waiting for things to dry out. It was about 1030 when we had finally cooked breakfast and packed up for some explorations for the day. At this stage, we hadn't decided where we would camp tonight. We would just wing it and see what the day had in store for us.

First port of call for the day was to take Leo out to one of my fave little places: Stockyard Gully Caves.

A relatively minor track to get in, I was surprised by the amount of cars in the car park. I had never seen so many. Donning our caving gear, we headed off down to the gully.

The bee hives at the entrance creating quite a loud buzz in the air:

And into the cave we go:

A flat walk on soft sand inside of some 250-300m, and pretty soon you are in complete darkness. Turning of ones head lamp and taking in the blackness is a surreal feeling. As you will see in my vid, I mention the bad habit of souveniring cave flow structure. I know it happens in other caves and I find the practice abhorrent. However, upon reflection, I have to admit, some (most?) of this damage could well have been caused by flood damage. You see, the cave is really just a tunnel. Its a creek bed, and in times of high water (no doubt that was some time ago), then it could well be possible these structures were removed by water and debris. At times gone past, the whole "tunnel" could have been under water.

Anyway, this time around I found evidence inside the cave that some movement monitoring is going on:

And before you know it, the rays of daylight start poking your eyeball's:

On a hot day, its a remarkable place down here. The river gully, vegetated with large gums is a cool little oasis. The vegetation so far removed from the scrappy salt bush that lines the coastal plains in this area.

The cave itself also provides great relief from the flies and heat on a hot day. With a couple of hours of exploring done and lunch now baking in the oven, we hit the track out, this time heading for Green Head.

Arriving in Green head at Dynamite Bay, the Pie and Chicko roll was ready for the Eating.

Poor old Leo had to go to the store for lunch and had a chocolate ginger scone with a choc milkshake to wash it down. Yuppie! A nice little store it is too, if you are in town, I recommend it.

From there, I took Leo up towards a little tourist track to see some of the other coastal scenery about the place. Venturing in to the new Milligan's Island camp ground to see if that's where we would like to spend the night. Quite different to the Cape, there was no one here. Whilst it seemed a nice, new campground, it just didn't have the appeal of Sandy so we decided we would venture back there for the night.

We drove down to the beach and spotted the most amazing contrail. A B777, on its way to Singapore at 36,000Ft, leaving a phenomenal contrail and a black exhaust plume parallel to the cloud. I've never seen that before:

From there we headed out to Point Louise:

Time now starting to get on, we decided its best we head back to camp in time for the sunset. However, a drive along Anchorage Bay back to Green Head was in order:

Returning to Sandy Cape, we found the place to be even more packed than when we left. With slim pickings to choose from, we managed to squeeze into a small site among the vegetation:

And just in time to grab a beer, a camera and a GoPro to watch the sun go down over the Indian Ocean:

Dinner again a simple affair. A pre made chicken parmigiana, garden salad and some dressing. Too easy:

However, once the sun went down, boy did the mozzies come out to play. Over a few drinks, leo decided to look up the International Space Station to see where it was. With pretty flakey coverage, He turns and says, would you believe its right above us......No way, I shit you not. So out into the darkness we ventured and watched as the space station zoomed on by. A Cosmonaut and an Astronaut or two, flying over, right above us, some 400Km above. Here we were wishing we could be where they were, and here they were wishing they could be where we were!

Come the morning, we helped a couple with some issues trying to fill their water tank on a rental troopie, packed up and headed for home. Leo made note of the fact he was now due a pint, due to the fact no rain had fell over the weekend. So, with that and the cop bet, we ended up even.

The only really thing of note coming home, was coming across an accident scene with a lucky escape. An older lady, trying to open a drink bottle, lost control in the dirt, spun and crossed to the other side of the road, backwards, burying the commodore arse end in the dirt. A lucky escape, a fella towing a boat coming the other way, only just missed her as she reversed out of control right in front of him.....

So a nice couple of days adding to the nights under canvas, now at 29 nights for the year.

A measly 560Km weekend, 210Km from camp to home, made it a pretty easy weekend. One we both dearly needed, since it had been nearly 3 months of being locked in at home and work since we had last been away.

The Tab seems to be doing the job nicely and the multi odometer function is a handy novelty.

In a month, I get a week off, so I'm thinking I may go and have a ferret again with the detector. Will this be the time I pop my nuggetty cherry???

And the trip vids:

part I-

and part II-

Get lost why dont ya!

So I have been asked a bit lately what would I recommend in regards to sat nav in your vehicle. Would I recommend a hema such as the HN7, a tablet, an Ipad or some other device.

Well at the outset, I have to say I have absolutely no experience with any apple product, nor do I plan to. Too many handcuffs for my liking. But those that have them, love them, so there must be something of worth there.

Since 2009 when I first set up an incar sat nav (and I'm not talking Garmin Nuvi's, Tom Tom's, Navman's and other street routable portable devices), I went with the good old PC, running various operating systems and had the output linked to an external monitor.

That has served my purposes very well, although it does come with some hangup's. Like trying to change mapset's on the move for example. Its almost impossible to do, and cant be done safely IMO.

But I've never been lost and have recorded some great data over the years. For example, my track logs from 2009 - 2015:

After my Canning Stock Route trip, the old 10" netbook hard drive running XP was starting to play up. I'm surprised it lasted that long. That poor old hard drive had been beaten to a pulp from off road corrugations for years without issue. The Canning finally sorted that out - not to mention the other vehicle damage suffered.

So I replaced that 12 months ago with a 14" lappy with SSD, running windows 10.  That has brought me up to the modern era. But I'm getting over trying to get touch screen drivers to run on Win10 effectively. That allows me control over my mapping program from the onitor itself - the laptop is buried under the seat.

Since 2009 my software of choice has been PC ozi explorer and I can get my way around this  reasonably well. Its pretty full on for the novice, but in reality, its not that hard to master most functions you would need to use for off road navigation with a bit of practice.

Some years ago I also purchased a cheap Chinese 7" street navigator running a WinCe platform, purchased a licence and put ozi on that. That wasn't too bad, Having 2 navs running at once, displaying different map sets of the same location can be handy. Its been sitting in my glove box since my old car failed on me though in 2015.

Over the years, I've purchased a lot of ozi mapsets. So to stick with what I have is a no brainer - unless someone can show me a better alternative for my map set library I've built up, primarily in ECW and various Ozf formats. 

So that brings me to the question that's been asked of me: what mapping platform to run? 

I recommended an android tablet. The reason being, its far cheaper than a hema (if you already have maps that is - and most maps aren't cheap) and far more versatile. Not only can you use a tablet for navigation, but there is a whole world of apps out there to cover almost any need one could have. The hema can't do that. And if you buy a 3/4G capable unit or have access to wifi, then you have the world of the webs at your finger tips too.

So, not to rest on my laurels, I put my money where my mouth is and went out and bought a tablet, specifically for this purpose. I'm unsure how this will go in the future, so will just have to give it a shot. With the PC, I've saved all my files as a GPX file. This allows me to save both waypoints and tracks in the one file. I can also exchange it between different platforms and import that into Google Earth if needed. However, Ozi android, still after all these years in development, cant handle .GPX files. So to make my older files usable on the tablet, I'm going to have to save both waypoints and tracks as separate files.

It can be very handy when in an area you have been to before and cant seem t find your way. Uploading previous saved tracklogs can be a godsend when you cant find your way. So that is one issue I will need to contend with. 

Onto the Tab. I already have a quality sSmsung tab with 4g . But I want a stand alone tab for my nav and my 8" Samsung isn't big enough for me. So enter a lenovo tab3 10 business. On special at the Good Guys atm for $200. Here is where I strike my biggest drama's. trying to find out if the tab has 2 features I need

1. a stand alone GPS
2. A magnometer (compass)

In the past, asking salesmen these questions was a mission in futility. They haven't a freakin clue.

Funny how things don't change. 

The salesman was getting a bit irate at my barrage of questioning. I said, if you can confirm these features you have a sale, if you cant, I have to walk. I must have spent a couple of hours with him. He tried to tell me it only had a-gps (needing an internet connection) and if it didn't have Glonass in the specs it wasn't stand alone. So I told him that's crap and he should google Glosnass - a Russian GPS constellation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS 


Anyway, with no Glonass in the specs, he wasn't keen to sell it to me. After searching numerous sites for specs on this tab, we agreed it probably did have a standalone gps and I would give it a shot. In fact, is there any tabs out there without a stand alone GPS only A-GPS?? So I saved at least $150 over a similar sized and lesser memory Samsung.

Once home and through the initial set up, I downloaded a GPS status app. And my fears were quelled. It did have stand alone GPS - phew. But no magnometer (compass). It would have been nice to have that magnometer, but for nav purposes isnt' required, so I can live with that. Funny though the lower spec 10" Lenovo showed an electronic compass.  And Android 5.1.

It might have been a better bet in hindsight. I forgot I had read that with Android 6 (the OS of my new tab), writing to SD cards had been disabled and provided some difficulties. I recalled this when I went to play with the new tab and found some issues. So to get around this, I have mounted the 64Gb card as internal storage. I can still transfer files with USB transfer on the PC to the card so all is not lost.

Anyway, teething issues sorted, I payed my $32 for an OziAndroid licence key and got that up and running with my truckload of maps. The GPS can be a bit flakey at times compared to my gps module on the PC, but it is good enough. I suppose I could go buy a bluetooth gps module if I dont like this flakiness at some stage in the future:

I then installed wiki camps to the tab, another valuable feature of using a tab:

My next task was for street nav routable maps. I was going to go with Igo - somthing I'm familiar with, but getitng no response from a vendor made me think again. My mate Woody, who was one who asked me which way he should go, put me onto here we go (formerly here maps). A free app with a free map download for off line usage.

I tried it out today, and although I knew where I was going, it seemed to do the job, even when I deliberately veered onto a different route. Like all rout-able street maps, sometimes you scratch your head where they take you. I've always said, it pays to look at a map first and rough plan your route.

So, to make this a going concern, I had to sort out mounting it in the car. I went the ram mount option. A seat bolt flexible pedestal, with quick release tab holder. Not a cheap option at $120, but it should do the job. I put a brace on the stem to help sort some of the movement this will produce when in the rough - mind you, I had a heavier monitor on a different stem and never bothered with the vibration in the past.

I was always planning on running this in landscape. However, it seemed to encroach too much into the passenger area for my liking, and a 10" tab provides plenty of field of view in the East-West plane, so my decision was made. Portrait it shall be:

It doesn't encroach too much on the passenger area, so that is a good thing too:

And I can easily turn it out of the way to gain full access to radio and climate controls when needed:

With a world of apps available to download, it makes the Tab a much better proposition to a hema or the like IMO.

But that said, I already own my maps. If I had to go buy them from scratch, the Hema or the like may well represent better value for money. So this is where I'm at at the moment. A total outlay (excluding maps) of $400 has me up and running. Now I just need to get out there and use it and see if I can cope not having the functions full blown OziPc had.

EDIT: 11/08/17

I mentioned the internal GPS seemed a bit flakey. By that, I mean I could see the speed box on Ozi didn't seem accurate at times and even sitting on a constant speed it would show speeds that obviously were not correct. So I decided to see how an external GPS would fix that issue.

So enter the Globalsat BT-821 bluetooth module. I went the BT-821 route over the others for a couple of reasons. 

1. It was about the cheapest and I didn't want to spend a motza proving a concept
2. it wont work with Apple products. I have none anyway and don't plan on ever owning such
3. It has excellent battery life over the others if I don't want to power it on the go

I feel if money wasn't an option, I would have been keen on the Garmin  GLO. Although only having about 1/2 the battery life, it also connects with Glosnass. More sat's to connect with should mean greater accuracy?? But its also twice the price.

garmin GLO

The BT-821 only connects to the GPS sat's and a major downer is the only charger supplied is a car charger. Due to it having a 4.0 x 1.7mm jack plug, it wont accept standard usb cables. However cheap solutions for that can be found and I will be able to charge it inside once this cable arrives.

It was very easy to connect it to the tab and to ozi  android. So I took it on a run for about 100Km's on a route I initially tested it on where I found that "wobbly" speed issue. Wow, what a difference the BT GPS made. The speed function was now so much smoother and accurate and it held fix for longer in places where the internal one just dropped out. So I think I will be running the BT module as a permanent set up now. Whilst viewing the sat page on ozi didn't seem to show any increase in the number of sats or HDop between internal and BT gps, field results show it to be much more stable. I believe the recorded track will be much more accurate now.

Which leads to a question: do you need to buy a tab with internal GPS if you can just connect an external BT unit?  I suppose the additional cost of a BT unit would have to be taken into account to answer that question.


 One reservation I had about running ozi android over the pc version was compatibility of all my recorded logs over the years. I save them in .gpx format as this allows me to save both the track and waypoints in the one file. Unfortunately Ozi Android doesn't support this function in full.

You can load waypoints from a gpx file, but not tracks. So I was given a lead about a converter program. Thanks Maurice!

Ozi track converter 

I downloaded this program and gave it a trial. It is very easy to use and will extract a track from a .gpx file and save it as a .plt file, which then can be used in ozi android. So to save me some work extracting tracks from my .gpx inventory, I will just leave this app in place and should I ever need to view an old track log, I will just convert it in the field as required.

Winning!


Watch this space. 

So with the first trip now under the belt (squeezing in at Sandy): some observations.

The Tab and ozi android seemed to do all I needed. My tracklog was recorded fine and I was able to put this into the PC version to combine all daily logs as a complete trip and saved as a .GPX file.

The biggest drama was trying to export the one waypoint I had saved and then finding it. Playing around with the config menu, I set the saving folder to default. Eventually, I could find the file. I'm not sure if this was an issue with coms between tab and PC or I just screwed something up. I guess I need to have another play on my next trip.