We are a little bit late in posting this blog – been having so much fun. We left Barcaldine and travelled through the small town of Alpha – called the town of murals. Admittedly there are quite a few murals; only trouble is that only a few of them are worth taking photos of – so we didn’t bother – except for one of Lorikeets.
It is amazing the types of wildlife we have seen in our travels so far – we have been going to places where there is little vehicle traffic and so we have seen:- wild pigs when we were looking for dinosaur fossils, mobs of curious kangaroos when we were gemstone fossicking, herds of wild goats, a few bustards (we interrupted one during his courtship), and so many different types of birds – glad we bought a book of Australian birds. One thing we did find out about birds – the black noisy bird we commonly call a crow is actually an Australian Raven. That’s the one that calls ‘faaaark’
Australian Bustard – in courting stance
Welcome to Sapphire Van Park
Anyway, we arrived at the Central Queensland area for gemstones – mainly revolves round the towns of Sapphire, Rubyvale and Anakie. We had been told of a caravan park in Sapphire WITH A SWIMMING POOL !Very important as the weather is quite warm. The park is in a bushland setting and is possibly one of the very best we have stayed in. Late in the afternoon the owners put out feed for wildlife – they only put out carrots, oats and other seeds. A male magpie has adopted us, as soon as he sees us up and around, he flies to just outside the van door. We give him some natural oats and water and he stays for quite a long time – warbling the whole time. When we go outside he follows us around. When the wildlife was being fed he kept running back to us (for protection) as he was being chased by Apostle Birds.
Feeding time.
Our friendly magpie
Sapphire Van Park Pool
We set out one day, full of high hopes, naturally, of finding some nice sapphires. The fossicking area we went to is called Graves Hill! We found a likely area to dig - layer of ‘gravelly dirt’ sitting on top of clay. The theory being that as sapphires are heavy, over time sapphires will gravitate to the bottom level of the gravel, but cannot go trough the clay. We dug and we dug and we dug. Gathered buckets of ‘wash’, filled a rubbish bin with water (we had to transport our own water) and began the process of looking for sapphires. Several hours later, with sore back, sore hands, and incredibly dispirited we called it quits – and to think that some people do this full time – as a living!!!!!!!!!!
'Rough' Camp
Typical (up-market) miners accommodation. Some are not this flash!
So, we decided to fossick the ‘easy’ way. We had been told of professional miners who provided ‘possible’ gem bearing wash. A bucket (normal size house bucket) was $20 and they also provided a Willoughby and a sorting table – as well as a cuppa and bikkies – and you did it in the hot sun. AND THIS IS CALLED FUN! It does get you in though – especially when you see the first flash of colour in the sieve as you are working the wash.
In total we ‘found’ in excess of 50 sapphires and zircons. 4 of these are being/have been faceted in Rubyvale. The rest we are sending to Thailand as they have the ability to facet smaller stones. We also found 1 ‘bomb’ (only partially formed sapphire) about 2cm square. This sapphire is completely dark but we are going to have it ‘skin polished’ – this will bring out some of its colours. One of the gem cutters on the field told us that he believes these will become somewhat valuable in times to come – especially the larger ones as they are quite rare. The owners of Armfest have just opened a new mine and are very happy with the first ‘colour’ – we think we will return in a couple of years to try our luck again. We have sapphires that are dark blue, light blue and green and (so far) a zircon that is the brightest yellow/orange. This stone is so bright – and it is Terry’s favourite – Val said it should be made into an earring for Terry to wear! While we were examining the stones we dropped the zircon in the grass – spent time scrabbling in the dirt and grass till we found it-----phew.
After----.8 carat.
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| When this creek floods, it rises 8 metres. |
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| Camp kitchen - van park |
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| Terry wanted to go there! |
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| Here as well! |
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| This bottle shop is in the middle of the bush |
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| Gunna live in this street |
Eventually we had to tear ourselves away from the gem fields and move onto our next stop. – Theresa Creek Dam – a dam built by Blair Athol Coal – near Clermont. This is an (almost free) camp. $10 per day. There is no fresh water available (doesn’t worry us as we have 164 litres in our tanks) but there are hot showers and flushing toilets. At the moment it is lovely and peaceful but we have been warned that on the weekend it comes alive with water skiers. No worry, we can just sit back and watch them.We have also been intrigued watching pelicans fishing and yesterday saw a couple of whistling kites dive down and catch fish that ventured too near the surface. Apostle birds visit us every day (noisy buggers) and we have one bloody peewee (magpie lark) that is making a mess of the car mirrors.
Pelican at dusk
A little bird, looking glad
Upon another pad
Sat another, but looking glum
For a snake had just bitten its bum......................
Next stop - Bedford Weir, near Blackwater.
So glad to see you back on blog. Sounds like bloody hard work that fokissing (as Bob would say) but exciting too. Keep up the hard work & remember your friends!!!
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