Our Sapphire Safari

[Chiron52]

Today we tagged along with the Inverell Gem Club and visited a private property at Mt.Topper. Thirty or so people attended and everyone went home with their share of crystals and sapphires. A BIG thank you to the wonderful people of the Inverell Gem Club for their help and friendship.
Tomorrow will be another big day with the Gem Club (weather permitting). Targets - marble, crystals and serpentine

 

[Chiron52]

We found some nice marble on Tuesday. The marble comes in various shades of grey (not 50) and I'm told it polishes up real nice.
We also found jasper and petrified wood in a nearby creek. Later we stopped on a small dirt road where an outcrop of serpentine can be seen. A quick search and some nice dark green serpentine landed in the back of the Gembaru.
Another short drive and we arrived at a rhodonite mine where we dug, chiselled and hammered some rhodonite to be cut and polished back home.
Wednesday we travelled to Nullamanna to search at last for sapphires. Sadly with the local creeks in flood we could only did up the bank and only managed a few sapphire chips.
7 Oaks sapphire park is closed until further notice. It is currently for sale.
So today we heard Billabong Blue is open at last. So off we went and had a ball. We found lots of sapphire and I was lucky enough to find some decent size stones too. I also found some yellow sapphires and one party coloured stone with a distinct divide down the middle - one half yellow, one half blue. Quite pretty too.
Tomorrow will hit Billabong Blue again as heavy rain is forecast for a couple of days and this might be our last chance for sapphire before the long trip home next week.
I will try to get some photos of the trip and show some of our finds when I have time.
Cheers.

 

[Chiron52]

On a side note - I met a couple of nice ladies from that place across the ditch (NZ) today. They were on an Aussie gem hunting holiday in an old Tarago rental. They thought you could find opal, gold and other gems lying about on the ground waiting to be picked up. Cute, but not overly endowed with smarts, me thinks. Still, they were nice to talk to.

 

[Chiron52]

My Best Sapphire -

Strange Sapphire -

My Days Effort -

 

[Heatho]

Good to see some stones are still being found at BB, did you meet Bill the owner? Is Lee still working in the office? I'm going to try to get up there in a couple of weeks, haven't been there in nearly a year. Really hanging for a gem hunt.

 

[Ditherer and Son]

I was there back in September and had a good chat to old Bill. I didn't see Lee, but Simon was wandering around speccing sapphires from everywhere. I am impressed with the size of some of the Sapphires you got Chiron. Did they come from the tourist pile or out the back digging for yourselves?

 

[LONEWOLF]

Glad you and the Missus are having Fun... That's what it is all about... Finding Stones, Meeting People and having Fun... :Y:

LW... :rainbow:

 

[Phil_In_Boots]

Heatho, I was there in March and Lee said he had to head back to Tassie on personal business in the middle of the year and from memory I think he said he wouldn't be back until early 2018.

Philip

 

[Heatho]

Cheers Phil. :Y:

 

[Chiron52]

Day 2 and another great day at Billabong has come to an end and also the rain has returned. But not until we had finished our 2nd and final day of sapphire digging.
Plenty of stones again today but none quite as big as my 17.20ct lump of yesterday. The missus came good today with a nice 11.35ct party colour.
Our sapphire and zircon totals for 2 days -
Thursday - 194.65ct. Today - 253.2ct Total = 447.85cts.
Our stay at Inverell comes to an end tomorrow as we move on to Glen Innes.
With all the New England creeks in flood we may not have another chance to find sapphires.
So a visit to the Emmaville Mining Museum will be at the top of our list.

Me at BB -

Good Wash -

Our 2 day BB Collection -

 

[Chiron52]

Hi Ditherer, we dug all our sapphires out of the tourist pile on site. With so many stones coming out of it we didn't need to go elsewhere.

LW, I had a few chats with the old fella at BB but forgot to ask his name. (Sorry about that, I was suffering from sapphire fever)

We met many nice people at BB and everywhere we went around Inverell. Typical of our country people I guess.
There were about 12 to 15 people at BB both days we were there.
The missus and I were the last to leave BB both days after closing time and we had to close the gate behind us.
Cheers.

 

[Heatho]

Well done, hopefully there will be a few nice cutters in there for you. Anyway you've got my sapphire fever firing up again, hopefully I'll get back to Inverell very soon, I'm planning to anyway.

 

[Chiron52]

We lobbed into the Fossicker Caravan Park this afternoon.
First thing I see is a middle aged lady tourist with a sieve and a bag of wash from 7 Oaks Inverell ($20/bag at this park, $12/bag in Inverell).
The lady had no idea what to look for. So as ever the gentleman, I offered my services.
I pointed out the sapphires she had in her first sieve, gave her a few pointers on what to look for and left a happy fossicker in my wake.
About then I noticed how bl**dy cold it was. Crikey, real brass monkey weather.
At least the rain has gone and we have 3 days in Glen Innes to find more shiny things.
Cheers.

MORE PHOTOS FROM INVERELL -

Me roughing it in Inverell. (What did you expect, I'm not a spring chicken anymore.)

Notice the rock outcrop behind the fella on the right and another to my left? They are grey marble. (On private property, sorry.)

My new "Gembaru". Blue as in - blue sapphire, blue topaz or blue opal.)

 

[Digginholes]

I just got home from up there, only spent half a day at bb on Thursday, down the back in the creek, had a good chat with Simon and got to see some really nice stones he has found and a few he had cut himself.
Top bloke !
Found a few nice stones, mostly bombs but was a good day.
Went back with the kids on Friday and dug the pile for a few hours and picked up quite a few bits but again nothing of real quality but was a great day and I'll be heading back as soon as I can! Will post pics when I get a chance.
Apparently there were three diamonds found at staggy creek yesterday too.

 

[Heatho]

I just got home from up there, only spent half a day at bb on Thursday, down the back in the creek, had a good chat with Simon and got to see some really nice stones he has found and a few he had cut himself.
Top bloke !
Found a few nice stones, mostly bombs but was a good day.
Went back with the kids on Friday and dug the pile for a few hours and picked up quite a few bits but again nothing of real quality but was a great day and I'll be heading back as soon as I can! Will post pics when I get a chance.
Apparently there were three diamonds found at staggy creek yesterday too.

Glad you had a good time up there Greg, Simon is a top bloke eh. He cuts a pretty decent stone too for someone who taught himself to do it. :Y: :Y:

Geez I'm keen to get back up there.

 

[Digginholes]

Yeah he does very well, some very nice stones in his collection! im going to be hanging to get back up there now, I didn't get to stay as long as I was planning too but very happy with what I found in the small time I had.
I also grabbed a bunch of the 7oaks dirt from the info centre hopefully they have a bit in them

 

[Chiron52]

We decided to do the touristy thing today. We set out this morning from Glen Innes and drove up to Emmaville. Had an awesome time at the Mining Museum (a big must see for anyone visiting New England). I could have stayed and chatted all day with Ron, the old bloke working there. He was a walking encyclopaedia of all this rock and mineral. We bought more rocks for us to cut when we get home and headed further north up to Torrington and then on to Deepwater. Crikey, what beautiful country all through there. We wanted to stop and have a dig every inch of the way, but needed to keep going or we'd not get back to our caravan park before nightfall.
We stopped at Deepwater to check out Mr.Tumbles shop then across the road to the local pub for a beer, a $10 roast lunch followed by apple crumble and ice-cream). How good is that? The publican only took over the pub 10 days ago and he and his wife come from down our way on the south coast too. Small world.
Arriving back at GI, we stopped at the Information Centre for some advice on where to go fossicking tomorrow - our last day before the long trip home.
So it's an early night for us. Tomorrow we're off to Wellingrove for a long day of digging holes and wrangling sapphires, all big buggers and all colours of the rainbow.
Cheers.

 

[Chiron52]

Well, today we did go to Wellingrove as planned.
The public fossicking area, like public fossicking reserves almost everywhere had been turned over pretty well and it was a hard slog trying to find virgin ground.
All we found today were 5 or 6 sapphires and about the same in zircons and all are very small.
For anyone planning to visit this reserve, a 4wd might be a wise choice. Although I did make it in and out with the Gembaru and the Crystal Queen guiding me around a couple of bad patches.
Now, the down side of Wellingrove Reserve - Check out the 2 photos below. The first one is obviously a burned out car. The second is a great pile of burnt rubbish beside the dam. The yellow plastic bag contained human waste. This burnt rubbish pile also contained a small venetian blind, mattress springs (the mattress had been destroyed in the fire) and amongst the rest, A HUGE PILE OF USED, DISPOSABLE, BABY NAPPIES and various other personal and household junk.
I know members of this forum would never sink so low as to leave this behind in a public fossicking/camping area. to the folks who did, I hope your vehicle later broke an axle or something equally as inconvenient, you mongrels.

 

[Chiron52]

On a happier note, here are some other photos taken over the last 2 days.

Me chatting with Ron at the Emmaville Mining Museum.

Just A Small Area Inside The Mining Museum.

Entrance to Wellingrove Fossicking Reserve.

How Wellingrove Should Look.

 

[Wishfull]

Chiron52 The top 2 pictures make it so damn hard for the 99% of us that do the right thing.