Powelltown Fossicking with ALF

I though i would post a few photos up of a recent fossicking trip i attended. With the support of many members from the Warragul Lapidary club, and the Australian Lapidary forum, a trip was organised to Powelltown in Victoria’s south east.

Powelltown is a great location that we have been to before and is a location that Topaz, Tourmaline and Quartz (Smokey) can be easily found. The actual fossicking is easy, once you access the creek, and consists of digging and sieving the sandy bottom of the creek. This time around we managed to find a couple of Smokey quartz points, a nice 300 carat clear quartz cutter, many black tourmaline specimens and one sliver of topaz that would be to small to cut.

Darwin 2012 - Adelaide to Woomera

Well, we left Adelaide at around 8am, which is a good time to get going. Traffic was heavy out of Adelaide and we tried, whilst moving, to take some photos of some roadside art on the way. Not much luck though for good shots without stopping so we may try to do this on the way back.

We cant travel for a day without some form of issue. Today, dads caravan mirror, the drivers side unit, came loose and then flew off whilst we were doing about 90Km/h. Another stessful moment for dad, who proceeded to pull over so I could run back and retrieve it.

Since there was a truck following, dad got some descriptive words leveled at him over the CB whilst I went back to see how the mirror fared. As would be expected, it was destroyed, so out came the backup mirrors ;)

The rest of the trip was really good, and once we took the turn north, traffic dropped off. We got a great view of the country side, since last time we had a dust storm hit us outside of Pimba and up until Port Augusta this time there was low level cloud. We also managed to see quite a few Emu on the side of the road which we didn't see last time. We hope to get some photos tomorrow.

Woomera caravan park has not changed, and was nearly empty when we came in, but it's a nice quiet park with suitable amenities. We spent some of the evening, after tea, at the caravan park "pub" ;)

Even the Cinema here is open tonight. Very tempting.

Below are some photos taken with the iPhone during the day and after that is the latest fuel economy graphs form mum and dads LTR petrol 4x2 Colorado. I plan to keep this updated during the trip as well.

 

 

Tomorrow we drive to Cadney Park station.

 

Canberra–Instagram and the Colorado Fuel Economy figures

 

Hi All, As i did at the end of the Perth Trip i thought i would add a copy of all the instagram photos i took whilst on this trip. In addition to that, now that i have my own tow vehicle i thought i would document its fuel economy on trips.

Instagram

 

Fuel Economy Figures

These figures were collected using GasCuby for the Iphone. I have been using this for all of the cars i have had since getting the iphone and will be able to continue posting this data on future trips.

At the moment i am attributing the high figures on the first day of the trip to incorrect Tyre air pressure and driving style. On the trip home i adjusted the air pressures away from dealer recommendation and more in line with the car placard. I also modified my driving style. Future trips will show is this helps

L/100km	Date	Vehicle	Odometer	Filled Up	Cost/Liter	Liters	Total Cost	Octane
9.3	25/12/2011	Colorado	3,176.00	Full	$1.44	32.77	$47.16	Diesel
13.7	30/12/2011	Colorado	3,317.00	Full	$1.44	13.07	$18.81	Diesel
12.6	1/01/2012	Colorado	3,579.00	Full	$1.52	35.78	$54.35	Diesel
12.4	2/01/2012	Colorado	3,760.00	Full	$1.53	22.89	$35.00	Diesel
12.2	5/01/2012	Colorado	4,166.00	Full	$1.46	50.39	$73.52	Diesel
11	7/01/2012	Colorado	4,307.00	Full	$1.56	17.26	$26.91	Diesel
12.4	7/01/2012	Colorado	4,692.00	Full	$1.51	42.51	$64.15	Diesel
	8/01/2012	Colorado	4,958.00	Full	$1.42	32.95	$46.75	Diesel