Emerald Qld July 14, 2024

 Emerald Qld July 14, 2024

Good run across to Jericho, but then you approach the Great Dividing Range and it turns a bit ugly. The road is winding as it climbs to some 500 metres and the narrow road surface is best described as “rough”. Not pot-holes as such but bumpy and jolting. Turned a dream run into a very long day in the saddle.

We have decided to stay in Emerald itself this year and take a run out to Rubyvale tomorrow, rather than camp out there again.

Sky's on fire. Emerald Qld

Well, its tomorrow and we set of at a leisurely 10 am or so and wandered out to Rubyvale, via the Snake crossroads and Sapphire. Nothing much seems to have changed in town since we were here last year, except the Miners Cottage fossicking place has changed hands. First thing the did is double the price of the buckets of wash, and halve the number of fossickers. Or so it seemed to me. Still, they do give you scones with jam and cream and a nice cup of tea for ‘smoko’, so it’s not all bad. The $30 bucket of was wasn’t very productive for potential emeralds, and at that price, we weren’t backing up for a second one. The wash itself just looked like a bucket of course river sand and stones. basically rubbish, I reckon. The thing is, they now have a “Premium Bag” at an eye-watering $100 a go. So that tells me that despite their claim that the wash hasn’t been gone through already, they have done some sort of sorting to come up with the basic bag and the premium bag. We for one, doubt that we will go back. You’d be just as well off at Bobby Dazzlers or Heritage Mine. Good job that it’s just a bit of fun.

JB head down and eyes wide open for that pop of colour. Miners Cottage, Rubyvale Qld

Ooh, aah. Could be a winner. Miners Cottage, Rubyvale Qld

 Miners Cottage, Rubyvale Qld

Had a great wagyu beef burger in the pub though, so that's all good.

It's hard to imagine, but they grow cotton out here. I thought it needed lots of flood irrigation and as far as I can see, there isn't much water around. But here's the proof...

Them ol' cotton fields out west. Emerald Qld

Not much else to see or do so we came back to town, bought some groceries, filled up the car at $1.95 a litre and retired to the van.

Rubyvale Qld July 16 2023

 Rubyvale Qld July 16 2023

A quiet day on the gemfields. Actually it is very quiet out here this year, lots of vacancies in the various caravan parks. Odd.

With the Miner's Cottage closed we had to look further afield for our bag of "wash" to play with and find our fortune.

So up to Sapphire we went, about 5km back toward Emerald from Rubyvale. First though - The Markets. There is always a market somewhere, and here of course they are predominantly about sapphires and other shiny things that are appealing to the eye. Not that you would buy anything from a market, certainly not gemstones, as there are so many sharks out there. 

Markets. Sapphire Qld

I found two great gems though: Passionfruit butter and ANZAC biscuits cooked just right! Yum

Passionfruit butter and Anzac bikkies! Sapphire Qld

We followed a Tourist Trail that went all of half a kilometre to yet-another-fossicking place where they sell bags of wash and provide facilities for doing just that with your rocks.

Back at the Miner's Hut, the stones are in a bucket and covered in clay and mud and have obviously just come out of the ground. Here though, they are in a small bag and look for all the world like the rubbish we throw out at the Miners Cottage. Nice clean stones, they don't even need to be washed you could just dump them on the table and start looking.

Looking through a bag of wash. Armfield, Sapphire Qld

Judy is happy though, she collected a few more bits and pieces of colour to add to our growing collection.

Didn't do much else, wandered around a bit looking at the scenery and sites, 

Ended the day at the Strudel Hut for the obligatory coffee and strudel, which was as nice as always. The man who runs it spoiled the whole effect by coming over to our table with a parrot on his shoulder. Judy, who has ornithophobia, was not a happy camper, and the little man was quite agitated that we didn't fall in love with his Eclectus Parrot. Oh well, this stuff happens.

End of day, I had a nice glass of Prosecco brought from home

Wine tasting. Rubyvale Qld

 

Rubyvale Qld July 15th 2023

 Rubyvale Qld July 15th 2023

Old Parkrunners never sleep. Dawn on the way into Emerald

Having moved to Rubyvale from Emerald yesterday, we were up at “sparrows’ and off on our way back again. This time so I could finally do the Emerald Parkrun, which has eluded me every time we’ve been here. I was a bit concerned at getting lost, but the run is well signposted and as usual lots of friendly locals and visitors. Here’s the map though, it’s even more convoluted that Urunga.

Parkrun circuit, Clermont Qld

The run goes all around the Botanic Gardens, and includes under the railway line and across the Nogoa river, twice. The river crossing is via a floating bridge. The old bridge next to it was built during WWII and is slowly but surely falling apart and down into the river.

Bridge over the River Nogoa, Emerald Qld

After the early start and the run, we went into town and had a hot breakfast before wandering back to Rubyvale. On the way in we just had to visit the markets, which consist of a handful of stalls, some selling gems, the others the usual array of market tat.

The only reason we keep going back to Rubyvale is to fossick for emeralds, well, buy a bucket-of-wash and the Miners Cottage and use their equipment to wash and sort it before getting their experts to examine our bits of rough for anything exciting.

Judy hard at work looking for gems. Rubyvale Qld

Sadly, the place is closed Sunday and Monday, so we will have to find another wash-and-weep place. There are a few around, so no drama.

Rubyvale Qld July 14th 2023

Rubyvale Qld July 14th 2023

Nice late and lazy start from Emerald, we are only going the 70km to Rubyvale, so there was no rush. 

Found our spot in the Rubyvale Caravan Park, the best one in town. Had a bit of a wander around then Judy had a SCAN and I sat by the pool reading some dreadful book I found in the laundry. Even though it was quite warm at about 24°, the pool itself was "refreshing". I tried a few times to get right in but it was just too damn cold. All they need is a bit of solar matting and a few pipes....

Anyhow, a do-nothing day and the interweb is "poor" to non-existent. We're only about 200m from the tower but the best we can manage is one-bar on 3g. 

Bustling down-town Rubyvale. 

Rubyvale, Qld 27July2022 465km

 Rubyvale, Qld 27July2022 465km

Straight out of Roma and heading north, dream run through to Injune and then on to Rolleston, another 170km away along the Gregory Goat track. Actually its not that its so bad, its just not that good and makes for a pretty tiring trip. Oh but wait, Road trains and roadworks, what a combo. Rolleston is known by all travellers as a tiny place to get some fuel and a coffee in the tiny Pioneer Park. We did the latter but calculated that Emerald was well within our range at 400km.

Back into the fray and joined the convoy of vans and trucks, all stopped at the stop / go roadwork light. Just get going again, but no its stop again. On and on. Finally we made it into Springsure, the trucks disappeared, the vans all stopped for lunch and we lit of for Emerald about 70km further. This bit of road is great and we slid into town in record time, about four-and-half-hours for the 400km. We fuelled up and wandered the rest of the way out west to Rubyvale a total of 465km for the day and 1600 plus kms in four days.

Enough already, I've run out of puff and my gout is playing up and I just want to stop and do nought for a while.

But first, a quick walk, as quick as my dodgy foot will take me, up to the Vienna Strudel shop for coffee and strudel. Just made it before closing and relaxed for a while. We were told in no uncertain terms that if we wanted to eat at the pub at anytime, we’d have to book, so we booked diner for Friday night. Judy seemed keen to get back to the van where happy-hour was threatening... fire-pit, snag-sizzle and country singer. Well I was expecting the yodelling to start any second, but he stuck to good-old country, or might be western, I have no idea, but is nasally enough to be either.

Thursday. Is it Thursday? Who knows. All I know is that we don't have to get up and go, which to me is just fine. Four days on the road is obviously enough for both of us these days. When we did finally get moving we moved the 600m down the street to the the Miners Cottage,  where one buys a bag of ‘wash’ and proceeds to fossick the lazy way, complete with Scones and Tea.

Lazyway fossicking 101. Judy taking instructions from the resident Emerald Expert

Going solo. Oh, here's one, into the cup it goes. The two piles are the coarse and the fine, from the sieves of the same name. Basically anything in the fines is too small to get excited about, but you just can't help looking for some 'colour'.

Miners Cottage 'gold' mine

The final was subject to scrutiny by the resident experts. Most are just colour, the odd few are 'polishers' and the vary rare one is a 'cutter'

After lunch we had a bit of a walk around town and ogled some of the gems on sale. Some are very nice, and very expensive. But that’s what gets you hooked, one day you might just turn up a big old chunk of sapphire.

Rubyvale Qld 24 July 2019

Rubyvale Qld 24 July 2019

Rubyvale is 60km west of Emerald, in the heart of the gem fields, and just as there are no Emeralds in Emerald, there are no Rubies in Rubyvale. There are Sapphires in Sapphire, 6km back down the road and possibly anarchy in Anakie, which is where the turn off is on the main road. But for now we have come to Rubyvale for a few days, hearts set on finding a big chunk of sapphire. That's the plan anyhow.

Heart of the 'throbbing cattle country' as it was described in days past.
Rubyvale Qld

Today we went on a tour of a walk-in mine, right around the corner and very interesting it was too. Now we know where the gems come from, how they were made and how to find them. We would have stayed and run a bucket of 'wash', which is the gravelly stuff in which the stones are found, across the table, but the 130 school children pretty much took up the entire area. Travelling back into town we thought we'd try our hand with a bag-o-wash at the Bobby Dazzler cafe and mine, but as it was past 3pm they had closed up for  the day. For $20-25 you can buy a bag-o-wash and use the purveyors facilities to wash and sift through the stuff, and you get to keep any gems you find. You then go away, maybe happy, possibly not.

Not to be put off, we went looking for coffee instead and found a bonus 'gem': authentic Austrian apple strudel and a decent mug of coffee. Yum!

Rubyvale Qld

Poor old Jack, stuck down the Miners heritage mine for 50 plus years
Rubyvale Old

Miners Heritage Walkin Mine, Rubyvale Qld

Bobby Dazzlers. Rubyvale Qld

Bingo! A gem at last. Strudel Hut, Rubyvale Qld