Gemfields - Sapphire Country - Central Highlands, QLD

We decided to try our luck at the Gemfields. With some local advice from Nola, a lovely volunteer at the Information Centre - Alpha, we headed to Willows Gemfields. Ross and the older boys took off fossicking out in the country-side... they collected samples, crushed and cleaned the rock samples and put them through a saphire finding machine... The boys (including Dadda) are grinning from one ear to the other at the moment, they are absolutely loving being 'fossickers'!!

The most common sapphires found in this area are green and yellow sapphires and for those of you who are interested... apparently rubies are red sapphires...


Everyone getting into the sorting - cleaning process

Sorting through the treasures



Sorting out the sapphires from rocks...

The boys found one small green sapphire!!!!

Next stop was Lake Maraboon, Central Highlands, QLD, 16kms south of Emerald. The lake is huge (three times Sydney Harbour apparently). We hired a motor boat, dropped some pots to get a feed of red claw lobsters (note to self for next time.... they don't eat cauliflower or apples). We threw out the fishing lines, all fiveluckyducks had a turn to steer, we ran out of fuel (had spare fuel on board)... and we had a swim in the lake.... Forgot to pack the camera today....