Gemtree Caravan Park 20th – 22nd June 09
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| From Gemtree |
Our next ultimate destination was Cairns on the north east coast of Queensland (Our final state). This is a bloody long way from Alice and we knew we had some tough driving with not a lot to see ahead. We had 2 choices – Bitumen (tarmac roads) via Three Ways, Camooweal and Mt Isa = 1150ks approx or a dirt/gravel road called the Plenty Highway straight over to Mt Isa with not a lot in between! = 750ks
We opted for the short cut (of course!) and stopped just 140ks out of Alice at a place called Gemtree Caravan Park. As the name suggests there are actual gems here and you can fossick for them yourself. You can normally choose from Garnets or Zircon (Both semi precious), but the Garnet tour was all booked out so we were taught how to fossick for the harder to find Zircon. Garnet is easier to find and therefore slightly less valuable because it is found in soft sandy soil, Zircon is in hard clay.
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| From Gemtree |
The tour began nice and early in the morning, we collected our gear and set off to the gem field in search of riches!! Basically once you have located the right layer of soil, you dig out all the stones and dirt that lie there, sieve it, wash it and then search through it for the elusive stones. Sounds easy and it was really apart from the whole swinging pick axe thing and all the shovelling and all the washing of dirt (which turned to mud in the bottom of the wash barrel) and then searching through 100’s of stones for maybe one or two muddy zircons that look nothing like they do once they are cut and set into jewellery!
Truth be, we had a ball, we quickly realised that no one is going to get rich doing this. We were only out there to see if we could find a nice stone that Heidi could set into jewellery. The tour guide said that if you find more than 3 cutable stones (That’s right, not all the Zircons you find are even any good!), then you have done well.
We were very chuffed when we got them back to the Caravan Park and were told that out of our 100 or so ‘possibles’ we had 8 cutable stones - a good day indeed.
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| From Gemtree |
We arrived back at our tent and were invited over to our neighbour’s tent for dinner. We gratefully accepted and the Damper and stew (which was awesome) went a long way to sooth our weary limbs. We stayed with our hosts until late chatting around the fire and listening to the singing of a man and his guitar a few sites down.
Plenty Highway and Mt Isa 22nd – 24th June 09
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| From Gemtree |
The next day we set out with many 100’s of kms of dirt road between us and the Queensland mining giant Mt Isa. The road was long and apart from a giant termite mound and having to stop at someone’s house to refuel (!), fairly uneventful. Though we did finally get to see some real ‘Bull Dust’, it is basically a massive hole in the road full of dirt the consistency of talcum powder. It is very nasty stuff and you can do serious damage if you go ploughing into a deep hole of it! It can also be hard to spot, but we managed to negotiate it without any dramas.
Dusty and tired we pulled into Mt Isa after dark and got to see the awesome copper mine all lit up – amazing sight. Dinner and then bed followed, the next day we headed to the town look out for views over the city and mining operation. We grabbed a new number plate (now that we were finally back in Qld) and fuelled up before hitting the road once more. We did not set off until afternoon and spent the night in a heavily populated rest area. A night in a nice little Caravan Park in Mt Garnet followed then we hit Atherton in the Tablelands just west of Cairns. (Nearly there!!)
