Emerald and Rubyvale

For once, we actually stayed two nights at the same place.  It was time to just have a day trip exploring.

There is a nice, bright sculpture at the intersection of the road that turns off to the gemfields.

First, we headed towards the larger township of Emerald.  What a change it was to see green, irrigated crops.

It was a shock to see traffic lights.  We hadn’t seen any since Orange, only 50kms from home.

We had a nice wander around town.  We have been here briefly once before, about 20 years ago, so don’t have a great deal of memory of it.  We did remember seeing the giant version of Van Gogh’s sunflower painting in the park.  It stands 25 metres tall and was completed on 1999.

The main striking building in town is the Railway Station.  It is far grander than those further west.

After our wander, we headed out to have a look at Fairbairn Dam, also known as Lane Maraboon.  First stop was the lookout to see the dam wall.  We read that the water level is only at 22%, so very low and no water going over the spillway.

You drive over the spillway.

The catchment is huge and the dam is a popular spot for fishing and boating.

After our look around, we returned to Emerald for lunch before heading back to the sapphire fields to try our luck.

The small towns of Rubyvale and Sapphire are located on sapphire gemfields.  

Cattle can roam freely and have right of way in the two towns, and we had to give way to a few.

If you are here you have to try to find a sapphire, don’t you. We had our sieve and bits and bobs, ready to go and have a scratch around, but really didn’t have any idea what we were required to do.  As we drove through Sapphire, which is before Rubyvale, we noticed a few businesses offering sapphire fossicking in a very controlled way.  At the caravan park, the fellow said you have a better chance of finding a sapphire at those establishments than getting a permit and going to fossicking sites.

We arrived at Sapphire at about 2.30pm and we noticed that most of the businesses closed a 3pm.  However, one stayed open longer, so we went there.  We learned that the reason they close a that time is that you need good sunlight to see the sapphires.  Yes, we could have a go, but we would be cutting it fine.

So how does it work?

You pay $30 for a bucket of dirt.  We just shared one.  They guarantee that you will leave with 70 carots of sapphires.  If you don’t find that amount they will top it up.  If you buy a more expensive bucket, you will find a cut sapphire in the dirt.

You are also given a sieve, pair of tweezers, jar lid and piece of hessian each.

First, you empty a bit of the dirt into your sieve and take it over to a bench where you pick out the larger rocks and throw them into the heap of rocks.

Then you take your sieve of dirt to a washing trough.  Here you rinse the dirt off the rock and sapphires with a special motion.  Like gold, the sapphires are heavier than most of the other rocks and will sink to the bottom.  We washed and washed, and after our first attempt realised we should have washed even more.  Live and learn. So, after you wash and wash and wash and wash, you take your sieve over to your piece of hessian that has been laid out on a mesh table.

Here you upend the stones in a quick action and hopefully manage to pick out lots of sapphires, which shine in the sunlight and are glassier looking than the surrounding stones.  

The lady proprietor was excellent in demonstrating everything that you needed to do.  She was also very good at coming along and checking what you had put in your little jar lid to see if it was actually a sapphire or just quartz or something else.  She also would find sapphires that you had missed.

We had a fabulous time there and felt the $30 was well spent for the fun we had.

So, did we find our 70 carots of sapphires?  Yes.  Mick did very well.  He actually found one sapphire that is 39.1 carots.  Our total was 92.7 carots, so we exceeded the expectations.  

We were going to purchase their cute little bottle to house our finds, but that one was too large to fit through the neck.

Did we find our fortune?  No, despite its large size, that sapphire is worthless, as it is flawed and cannot be cut.  But it is fun to say you found one that size.

Oh, and the cafe at the fossicking park sells very good cake for afternoon tea to take away.

The perfect end of another fun filled day of travelling.