29TH JULY 2013 – CENTRAL HIGHLANDS, QUEENSLAND AUSTRALIA.

We have arrived at Emerald, quite a large, modern country town established originally in 1879 as a base for the building of the western railway & named because of the green pastures. Quite co-incidentally it is in close proximity to the sapphire mining areas of Sapphire & Rubyvale. It is at the junction of three highways, Gregory, Inland & Capricorn so is an extremely busy place. Once a major sunflower producing area, Emerald is now home to the world’s largest Van Gogh sunflower painting located in the town park. It is 25mtrs high with approximately 13 tonnes of steel used in its structure. It also has a beautiful old Railway building. Once cattle country, due to the building of the Fairburn Dam in 1972, it now produces over 25% of QLD’s cotton crop. Our stopover in Emerald was a very noisy one between the railway track & the highway, though it wasn’t quite as bad as expected. It was situated by the Botanic Gardens which apart from providing toilets & water, was a pleasant place to stroll although it has seen better days. I would say it is kept open by volunteers. Across the road was a good shopping mall with supermarket etc, so certainly convenient for us all.
 

Railway Station Emerald
 

Next morning it was a short drive to Sapphire. It is a 48hr parking site here & provides again toilets & even a lovely new swimming complex, open only in the hotter months. There are horses, cattle & even camels wandering at will . On the second morning we were woken to a most unfamiliar noise , very loud & like a whole lot of creaky gates opening & closing. It proved to be a flock of about 15 quite lovely guinea fowl. We all had a good laugh at them as they go themselves into someones garden & couldn’t work out how to escape again although they were right next to the gap in the fence. There was very definitely a leader though & finally one of them jumped up onto the fence & jumped over & that gave them all the impetus to find the gap & they left at quite a speed in a big long line still creaking their heads off.

Although no real town, Sapphire it does have a general store & fuel, of course a pub & several cafes, & quite a number of gem shops selling gems alone or jewellery which I must say was rather tempting. some of the shops also organise fossicking tours. Everything is VERY rustic & full of character. This is one of the world’s most significant sapphire bearing grounds & covers 900 sq kms. As you can imagine it is a really ‘interesting’ place to say the least. There are lots of old caravans, hovels, sheds, machinery, old cars – you name it they are lying around somewhere, no doubt discarded by those who have left no richer than when they arrived. A lot of the vehicles we saw had no number plates on them so naturally no WOF either. People from all over the world come to seek their fortune here hoping for that lucky find, & although there are some who have, most don’t but never leave until they die. As a visitor there are several ways to experience the gemfields. Firstly the least adventurous & easiest is to buy a bucket of ‘wash’ (basically dirt & stones). We paid $8 but some others were $10. The system is to sieve the dry stuff, then wash in a trough of water after which you tip it out onto a hessian sack on a table & with plastic tweezers go through looking for a gem. Sounds easy & it is, but it is slow & a bit hard on the back. It took us about 2 hours to do a bucket full. Naturally we didn’t have high expectations – just a bit of fun & experience – but we did find small bits & one which is a Black Star Sapphire & worth about $100. Topoish it & set it would have cost about $30 & then the cost of the jewellery to place it in. Needless to say we didn’t bother - just a little memory of our trip.

 

Jan fossicking
 

 

Shed at Rubyvale
 

The second alternative is to go on a fossicking tour for the day with tools provided to dig your own wash out in the fields, permit provided. This would have cost $80 for the two of us. At Rubyvale just a couple of kms down the way, there are tow very nice hotels, one quite newish & built from local boulders, iron bark logs & locally crafted wrought iron. There is also a caravan park & store, community services & police station. It seemed to be slightly more organised & tidier than Sapphire.

Jan feeding Rainbow lorikeets

!st August – Well here we are in August & only 3 weeks from home. The weather has been just beautiful in this part of QLD, cold mornings (6deg this am) with gorgeous clear blue skies & sunshine. It’s such a treat to sit outside for brekkie – there is always something to catch your eye. We left Sapphire & Rubyvale behind to head further down the inland route towards Carnarvon National Park which has a reputation of being quite spectacular with lots of walks. Not being in a hurry we will have at least one stopover beforehand. By morning tea we have reached Lake Maraboon & the Fairburn Dam, a lovely peaceful spot with a caravan park right on the very large lake, another one which holds more water than Sydney Harbour. There is also a very large picnic

area. I imagine it is a popular place with locals from Emerald for weekends & holidays but no freebie here so we move on & find a very small parking area near Mt Zarmia & what is known as the ‘Virgin Mary’ rock, so named because it looks like a large effigy of the lady herself on the face of the rock. As luck would have it that evening it was subtly lit but I couldn’t get a shot. Naturally we had a very peaceful night being overlooked.

Virgin rock

 

Next morning we drove through Springsure to Rolleston & a beautiful drive it was. Lots of bush & hills to drive over for a change, & lovely views of the mountains on yet another glorious morning. Further along there are lovely golden grasses & miles of green crops – I know not what. There are lots of road kill, many of them quite young joeys. A brighter sight was to see an echidna crossing the road with all the traffic slowed to avoid it. At tiny Rolleston I took a shot of the local primary school children busily painting a very large mural on one of their buildings. On asking permission “could I take a photo of these very industrious children”, one little boy replied “No”. I then told him I wanted to take it home to show my grandchildren in NZ & that must have done the trick because he & the others were only too happy to oblige & smiled with their artists brushes in hand, some up ladders. So then it’s onwards to Carnarvon 106 kms away, all sealed but for the last 18kms of dusty gravel. Lovely setting for the caravan park which is $45 per night so quite a splash out for us! Of course they probably only get revenue in the winter as when the wet comes it would be closed. The sites are quite small, everyone packed in like sardines but we won’t be in camp much – lots of walking to do. We met up with the couple from Sydney we befriended some way back which was nice. Once settled in we drove to the park Info Centre to get a brochure & map of walks, & on the way back managed to do 3 small ones, one a lovely gorge. At 5pm a large number of campers assembled for a Ranger’s talk, but sadly he was delayed & we only got about 15 minutes before he had to go off on a night tour.