Emerald

The drive north from Lake Boondoomah to Emerald was a long one, and thanks to lots of road works was even longer than it needed to be. We ended up doing a one night stop over in Injune, which was completely unmentionable. Once we arrived in Emerald, we decided to stay 20kms south at Lake Maraboon and was nice to have the lake to cool down in and gave Tim another opportunity to chase red claw. At last he was successful and he ended up with 6, one was the size of a small lobster.
We did a day trip up to Sapphire and Rubyvale to try our luck fossicking. After an underground mine tour (including bats... yuk) we bought a bag of wash, it was way too hot to do our own digging. Lola found a beautiful green sapphire that was gem quality, a nice size and definitely worth cutting, while Rex and I also found a few smaller ones worth cutting. Tim got the bug and hasn't found a gem quality one yet, but we still have a bag of wash to sift through!
Both Sapphire and Rubyvale were like shanty towns almost. There are tin shacks, caravans and make-do homes because the claims aren't aloud to have permanent dwellings on them. The machinery they use to sift the wash looks like a collection of bits from the last 150 years and the surrounding landscape looks as though every inch has been dug up at some stage with uneven mounds of dirt everywhere. Not exactly beautiful, but an interesting way of life.