Miners Heritage Walk in Sapphire Mine and more sapphires

Friday 12 July 2019 – 268 099

First stop today was Policeman’s Knob, believed to be where the volcano that created the sapphires in the area was centred.

The Miners Heritage Walk In Sapphire Mine was our second stop today. 

http://www.minersheritage.com.au/

We took a tour of the underground sapphire mine which was closed in the early 2000’s.  I learnt that sapphires come in an amazing variety of colours – in this area blue, green, yellow and particoloured are most common.  The tunnels are tall enough to walk through and generally do not have supports as they are created in a keystone arch style, as originally trialled in Roman times.  Prior to machinery, the side tunnels were “tummy tunnels”, arched like the main tunnels but only high enough to be slithered in and out of.  Throughout The Gemfields the depth of the sapphire bearing alluvial wash varies greatly, from 50cm to 20m plus below the surface.  Most of the commercial gem mining is done at the greater depths.

We then had a look at a variety of beautiful jewellery and gemstones in Rubyvale before enjoying a picnic lunch.  This afternoon we returned to Bobby Dazzler’s to finish washing and sorting yesterday’s diggings.  I found an eleven-carat particoloured sapphire!

Next we drove through Sapphire looking at some of the unusual dwelling styles.

We took a walk to the Sapphire Wetlands – which are currently completely dry.  We also had a drive through Anakie, before heading to Emerald. 

We are camped for the night at Emerald Botanic Gardens.  This is a lovely free camp beside the Nogoa River. https://www.queensland.com/attraction/emerald-botanic-gardens-56b26004aeeeaaf773cf2acb

The Gemfields - Sapphire Fossicking!

Thursday 11 July 2019 – 267 903

After packing down we continued east toward Emerald. On our way we had to pull over to allow some wide loads of mining machinery parts through.  We also stopped at a lookout as we crossed the mountains.

We turned north at Anakie, to Rubyvale.  We are staying the night at Gemseekers Caravan Park – great service and lovely caravan park.

http://www.gemseekers.com.au/

 

We spent the afternoon at Bobby Dazzler, where we did a fossicking trail boot camp. 

https://www.bobbydazzlerminetours.com.au/ 

A guide took us along a nearby creek bed and explained that sapphires accumulate in the outer bend of creeks, below the moist layer.  We got to dig up our own buckets of wash from the creek bed.  The tour guide showed us a unique wooden construction that was lined with logs and used as a base for a machine to pass material across the creek for processing.  We then took our material back to the building and were shown how to sieve, wash and sort it.  I found lots of little sapphires and a few zircons, Drew found several medium sized sapphires and Hayden found several small ones and one sixteen carat sapphire!