Emerald - A Foka licking Good Time

Emerald makes me think of the Wizard of Oz, I'm not sure why, but I'm sure one of my friends or you good readers will enlighten me.  Was it the home of the Good Witch or Bad Witch?  Anyhow's  we are staying out of Emerald at lake Maraboon, its very pleasant.  There is a little bit of green grass and shady trees so I am a happy camper once again.  The first night we went to sleep to the sound of rain on the roof,  I don't need to tell you we all slept well.  Yesterday was a very comfortable 20' and today was a bit warmer 26'.  You will all think I am obsessed by the temperature so I will try not to mention it again.

 This area is known for it's gem fields.  Grace has been hanging out for this part of our trip.  She is our little gem loving, gem.  So yesterday saw us going for a drive to Sapphire and Rubyvale about 40 km away.  We think we sighted a Bustard Bird on our way but not sure.   So we went to Pats Gem bought a bucket of wash for $10 and we where then instructed by the lovely Denise on how to sift, wash and fossick for the gems, mostly sapphires.  I can report that we did have luck and walked away very pleased with our little bag of precious gems.  Grace was in her element and had a great time.  We then had a tour of a local mine and to be honest we bummed out on this one as it was not very good at all.

At the wash

Looking for gems

Heres a fun game you can play.  How many variations on the word Fossick can you come up with?  Here are some of our unintentional examples ; fossilicking, fossilising, fok-a-sing!  Now try to match the right Red Elephant with their version of Fossicking.

We had such a great time foset ding  that we went back today.  Grace and James shovelled the lucky bucket of wash as we had luck again.  But the best part of our day was being shown a mine by a local man by the name of Tim who happens to be Denise's hubby.  He took us down his mine in his lift and showed us around underground explaining how everything worked and how safe we where.  I did feel very safe, it was like being down in a bigger version of a mousey hole.  We then all went up where Tim showed us how all the above ground "stuff" worked and showed us his very flash room that he polish's and facet's the gems he finds.  What a lovely man, and Tim if you are reading this, we will have fond memories of the afternoon we spent with you and your mine.  We hope that one day you find that special Gem.

James Excavating

Going down

On our way back to the park we spotted wild Goats and wild Camels and a long train full of cattle (choo choo train not road train).