Fossil Fossicking

It was our last morning with Moshen, whose job today was to deliver us to the White Desert National Park, where we would meet a new driver & move into a four wheel drive vehicle! We had had more than the itinerary dictated with Moshen. Whilst he stopped to fill up with petrol, we had a closer look at the election posters covering every surface & J1 started taking photos of them, because we liked the picture symbols for each candidate, used by the illiterate for voting. The owner of the petrol station started yelling at us not to take photos & Moshen yelled back, defending us & explaining that we weren't a threat...that anyone could find his petrol station on Google earth! It was an energetic start to the day!! Moshen is passionate about the area (just as well, as he works for the Tourism dept!)& was frequently berating us for not spending longer here! He had made an effort to take me to a few handcraft places & when I hadn't bought anything...had bought something himself as a means of supporting these women who were trying to make a living. On hearing us comment about lipton tea-bag tea in the hotels when the local grown real tea is so good, he had taken us to roadside cafes for real tea...& bought us a couple of packets to take with us. We had met local people & enjoyed these experiences, & had a lot of laughs as he taught us a few Arabic words & tried pulling the wool over our eyes a few times!!! So it was with a sense of sadness that we faced our 'ma'a salaam'(goodbye). Enroute, we stopped at a place along the sand sea where his car had once broken down! He explained that whilst he had waited for help, he had taken a walk around the area & found a number of fossilized flowers etc. So we stopped to go fossicking! It was great fun, before hitting the road once more & following the gradually changing landscape of the desert to our rendezvous.