Some finds from Lowmead

[Lefty]

No permission needed for Lowmead, it's a general permission area even though half of the diggings are on private property and the half on the other side of the road is in state forest.

To get to the diggings, go to Miriam Vale and head down the Fingerboard road to Agnes-1770. At the end of the Fingerboard where the service station is, where you would turn left to go to Agnes, turn right instead and head toward Baffle creek/Bundaberg, you will see signs to Lowmead. Turn down Gorge road.

The bitumen runs out and you drive through mountainous country. Eventually, you come to a T-junction and on the corner is the little Lowmead school. The town (about 8 houses and a pub) is a few km past the school to the left but you will turn right at the T-junction. After a few km you will see a railway bridge going over the road and just before it is the turnoff - Clarke's road. There should be a sign for Clarkey's petrol-head paradise from memory.

Continue down Clarke's road a short distance and look carefully - you will see diggings everywhere on either side of the road, most of them are old. If you get to Clarkey's, you've gone too far.

The crystals are in a thin band of broken quartz (mixed with sand) between half a metre and a metre down, resting on a hard basement. Digging is easy, you can do it all with a shovel pretty much. A throw sieve is a good idea.

Another place is Riverslea crossing, on the Fitzroy west of Rocky. Go out through Gracemere, out past Westwood and turn off the highway at Gogango and cross the railway line, you will see signs to Riverslea. It's about 15km down the road from Gogango. When you see a property sign for Riverslea station, don't go straight ahead to the property. Follow the bend in the road to the left and the river crossing is not far away. You can find petrified wood and agate on the gravel banks at the river crossing.

Hope that helps

 

[Lefty]

I guess the weather scuttled your plans for a Lowmead dig this weekend Nath?

If it fines up and you go by next weekend - Capricornia forecast is for showers and storms every day for the next five or six days - I would definately reccomend taking a drum of washing water, the gravel will surely have a coat of fine, wet clay.

 

[Dedicated luck]

Gday lefty
I accually did manage to get down.. didnt do to glash but was happy with first ever trip. Got the idear need to get to ghe hard botom and they will be above that! Will yhey be in that harder base aswell? Enjoyed my self and cant wait to get back up there.

Ps. Not sure how to opload photos haha

 

[ktmman]

Good to hear you got down there for a dig.
We found that there are crystals in the harder white material that sits on the granite,though not as many to find.
I found the easiest way to upload photos is to use an app on my phone to reduce the picture size to under 1024Kb.
Then load the reduced photo onto my desktop and upload from there.
Hope to see some photos of your finds.

Richard

 

[Lefty]

Gday lefty
I accually did manage to get down.. didnt do to glash but was happy with first ever trip. Got the idear need to get to ghe hard botom and they will be above that! Will yhey be in that harder base aswell? Enjoyed my self and cant wait to get back up there.

Ps. Not sure how to opload photos haha

Good stuff mate. How lucky you are at finding gemstones has a lot to do with how persistent you are at going out looking for them. Just keep at it and you'll start turning stuff up

Hey Richard, have you seen the big crystal on the display shelf behind the bar of the pub? I've only been inside once and not noticed but I've been told there's a very large one on display there.

 

[ktmman]

Hey Lefty

Still haven't called in to the pub yet.
I thought someone said that the crystal behind the bar was stolen when the barman had his back turned.
May be was another they had there?
Will have to check it out when there next,which will be next winter I think

Richard

 

[Lefty]

Bummer! Oh well, it apparently came from the area somewhere, not sure if it was the main digging site. It's quite a nice little pub actually, just sitting there in the middle of nowhere.

I think winter sounds good Last time I was there not long ago there had been rain and when I got down to the hard basement there was water oozing across it (this was further down the hill, there was no water up near the road - bet there is now though).

 

[Lefty]

Hey Lefty

Still haven't called in to the pub yet.
I thought someone said that the crystal behind the bar was stolen when the barman had his back turned.
May be was another they had there?
Will have to check it out when there next,which will be next winter I think

Richard

Hey Richard, I just got back from a dig at Lowmead (nothing special, couple of little bits that are ok) and we called into the pub on the way home. The crystal is still there on a high shelf behind the bar - it's almost as big as the 6-pack I bought!

Would like to know exactly where in the area it came from but the publican didn't know, he said it was there when he bought the pub.

Go and check it out 8)

 

[ktmman]

Thanks for that Lefty, next time I am up that way I will check it out.

As soon as the weather cools down I'll give it another shot,see if I can't get a few bits of Amethyst to go with all the Smokies I keep finding.

 

[Lefty]

Yeah, I found plenty of amethyst the first few times and then it was just smokey and citrine. Same today, one little bit of pale amethyst I think might cut a small stone.

Funny how much it can vary over such short distances.

 

[ktmman]

Weather was a bit cooler today so thought a trip to Lowmead was in order.

As usual my brother found a good pocket with the above Amethyst coming out of a small area.

A lot off these pieces are double terminated as well.

He also found the large milky quartz crystal in a different hole.

I only found a couple of small pieces this trip but there's always next time

 

[Lefty]

Looks like you did ok there Richard I think another drive down there might be in order for me now that the worst of the heat is (hopefully) just about behind us.

 

[Varts]

Nice mate .

 

[Lefty]

Hey Richard, I might shoot down there for a dig on Saturday. The forecast for both the Gladstone and Bundaberg regions is chance of showers and a possible storm but if it doesn't look too much like heavy rain early Saturday morning I think I'll risk it.

Was the gravel layer still wet and puggy on the weekend?

 

[ktmman]

Yeah mate, I had a dig down the hill where someone had dug recently and it was only just dry enough to go through the
plastic sieve I was using.
The first place we dug near the parking area was a lot drier though, so I spose the further down the hill you go the wetter it gets.
In the end I stopped sieving and just looked for the crystals as I dug through the gravel layer.

I will be up there next weekend with some fb guys who are keen to see what it's all about.
Might even be able to check out some private property if I'm lucky.

 

[Lefty]

Yeah, I've heard it's not just restricted to the site we dig at but can be found around the area. There might be some bigger, better crystals around?

 

[Lefty]

Finally found a bit I think might facet....

Most of what looks like cracks are on the surface, I think there is a small stone in it.

Talking to some people from the club, they have also heard that there are spots around the area that have better, cleaner crystals than the diggging site. But they are on private property.

 

[ktmman]

Hey Lefty, I'm heading up there on Monday with a few others for a dig .
Hoping it won't be too wet.
One of the guy's I'm meeting there is going to give a local a call and see if he can get on to some private property for a look.
If that pans out I'll let you know.
And congrats on finding a cutter. Hope I get one half as nice as that.

 

[Lefty]

Good luck Richard! It didn't seem overly wet the other day. I reckon you could probably use a throw sieve by now, though I was right up beside the road, might still be wet further down the slope.

Cheers

 

[Lefty]

Hey Richard, one of our members was down at Agnes on Thursday doing a cement slab and says the ground was extremely wet and sloppy. Apparently they had some heavy rain the other day. Forecast for today and tomorrow is for the possibility of showers.

Unless it comes over heavier, I'm still going down tomorrow. Agnes/1770 tend to get a bit of extra rain compared to the rest of the area - the actual proper rainforest at Eurimbla is testament to that - it might not have rained that much or at all back at Lowmead.

See you there if you're going