Clermont Qld July 17th 2023

Clermont Qld July 17th 2023

Feeling lucky, we went up to Sapphire to Pats wash-n-wish and ran a bag of their wash through the process. This time it was a different technique, only the one fine sieve and no Willoughby to wash with. And just shake the dust onto the ground. Washing was done in a trough by hand and worked just fine, there not being a lot of mud on the stones, but at least some.

And you get to sit down at the sorting table and take your time making sure you picked up every little bit of coloured stone. Well not all the coloured stone,. most is rubbish, just as well Judy has a good eye for this and quickly filled the jar-lid with her treasure.

Judy at Pats, Sapphire Qld

The people here are new since last time and very friendly, however, the expert was a bit off-hand about Judy's gems, not declaring any as "cutters".

Even though it was a very pleasant spot to sit and drink coffee and chat with the locals and their dog, we had already made our minds up for a change of plan.

We had decided to leave Rubyvale a day early and move up to Clermont, which is 120km north. It's not much but brings the next day's run down from 490 to a more manageable 370. Actually we ended up taking this nice quiet drive up a narrow, winding hilly backroad, but one with great views of the volcanic plugs and the fertile plains. The backroad is 35km shorter than the main Gregory Highway, but probably takes just as long as its 85-90kph touring, the road being quite narrow and no marked lines. 

The surprises keep coming. On arrival in Clermont CV, we are summarily told to go straight back out again and take ourselves down to the overflow parking area, which is ok for one night but a bit off-putting nonetheless. The site allocated is quite steep for a van park, I had to take extraordinary measures to get the van unhitched, then even more extremes to jack it way up high to get it level. The back is so low I couldn’t use the legs and had to resort to our small bottle jack. A first for us, but not a bad spot once we settled in.

Angle parking, Clermont Qld. OK so the van is level, see how far the car drops down!

We had lunch down by Hood’s Lagoon, one of those little gems one finds in remote towns from time to time. It’s a man made lagoon, complete with a bridge, boardwalks and three fountains. 

 

Forest Kingfisher sitting on a safety fence. Clermont Qld

Hoods Lagoon, Clermont Qld

Clermont Qld 27 July 2019

Clermont Qld 27 July 2019

After our lunchtime start from Rubyvale, we took what we thought was the short-cut up to Clermont, avoiding the return trip back into Emerald. However, we came out on the highway at Capella still some 60km short of the target. We had thought we were going via Therese Creek Dam or thereabouts, but all we saw was the dry bed of said creek somewhere outside Clermont.

We took up our spot in the caravan park in this pleasant, quiet town and had some lunch. In the afternoon we went to find the Therese Creek Dam, which is about 20km out of town on the road that we obviously missed. On the way we stopped to look at a brick chimney at the sight of what was a productive copper mine in the 1880s. All that is left is the hole in the ground, the chimney and the tiny general store which was once a museum. As the whole place is surrounded by a tall chainlink fence to keep the idiots and vandals out, all I could do was take a few quick snaps and head off for the dam.

Remain of Coppermine. Copperfield Qld

We were expecting to see an earthen dam and a bit of water, what we found was a pretty huge 'free camp' (at $15 a night its hardly free), a boat ramp and a picnic area. And a large body of water, but no sign of a dam anywhere.

Picnic area, Therese Dam, Clermont Qld

Lake Therese. Clermont Qld

Back in town we looked for life, there was none, it was Saturday afternoon and the local races were on, leaving the town mostly deserted. We did find an open bottleshop and so we entertained ourselves with our very own happy hour.

Rubyvale Qld 26 July 2019

Rubyvale Qld 26 July 2019

More fossicking today, but done the genteel way. Just down the road there is a place called The Miners Cabin, which is someones house, but down in the backyard they have set up a shed and a range of sorting tables, sieves and Willoughbies all set up and ready to go. You give them $20 and pick your bucket of wash, receive two pair of tweezers and are shown your table. The whole process is explained and away you go. It took us an hour and a half to work through our bucket including taking time out to to eat the complimentary coffee/tea and scones. Anything you find you pick up with your tweezers and pop the stone into your dish. When you are finished you take your dish to the checking stations where experts examine each stone, sort them, and give you advice as to what to do with them. The advice ranges from putting them into 'Show and tell' bags, to 'Polish' and best of all 'cutters'. They even give you documents and instructions on how to get them cut, in Thailand of all places, for almost nothing.

We ended up with a bag of 'show and tell' dross, which was a bit disappointing given the list of daily hero finds they had up. Anyway, it was a lot easier and and lot more fun than yesterday's hard slog.

Miners Cottage. Rubyvale Old 

Miners Cottage. Rubyvale Qld 

Judy pouring over the fines. Miners Cottage. Rubyvale Qld

Sorting and assessing. Miners Cottage. Rubyvale Qld

Hero finds of the day. Miners Cottage. Rubyvale Qld

The experience was so good, we went back this morning to run another bucket through before we head off for Clermont. This time we had a bit more luck, scoring some Polish stones and a couple of interesting Cutters, one of which was 12 carats in its uncut state. We'll be sending them off for sure to see saw how they scrub up!

Clermont Qld. 27 July 2017

Up and away early from Roma, we have a long drive ahead, some 515km to Clermont. The road north out of Roma isn't brilliant, and gets quite hilly as we cross over the ranges onto the plateau. One thing we noticed was the number of vans travelling south, don't they know its still cold down there? There is one section of 'development' road, which is quite narrow but reasonably smooth and not as daunting as the map makes out. The thing is, there is a lot of not much between Roma and Rolleston, where we stopped after 250km for a rest.

Last time we came through here there was next to nothing in this quaint little town, a single short street with a few down-at-heel shops and a park. This time however, the park was sporting a coffee van run by volunteers raising money to beautify the park, and by the look of the park, doing a great job. There was at least twenty vans parked in the street and everyone was waiting for the coffee; and using the loos and checking out the old post office and the museum. The lady in the van reckons it's this busy from the time they open until closing, every day of the week. What a great initiative - good on them!

Coffee waggon doing a great job at Rolleston, Qld

Main Street,  Rolleston, Qld

From Rolleston its an easy drive up to Springsure, which looks like a nice place to stay a while. Unfortunately on the way a large truck slammed my driver's side mirror flat with its bow wave and the attached trailer mirror flew off into oblivion. We didn't even back off; there was no point, it would have been smashed to pieces for sure. From Springsure to Emerald the road opens up a bit and we started to make better time, reaching Emerald in time for a refuel and lunch in the park.

Finally, we reached Clermont some 120km up the road from Emerald, but an easy drive. The van park at Clermont has undergone a sort of resurrection: it was pretty worn out last time, and this year it's all nice and shiny. All the old vans have been pushed out into the back paddock, where they will be 'accidentally' consumed by flames in due course, and there are heaps of new cabins and dongas. Obviously there is more happening around Clermont than a bit of gemstone fossicking, which is why the majority of vanners are here. They're worse than fisherman, 'you should have seen the stone this bloke got - it was this big!' Good on them.

But there is this gem in the Clermont Caravan Park Rules which makes all this travel worthwhile:

'There is no dump point [a dump point is where you empty your caravan's toilet] in the caravan park. The dump point is located in Lime Street near the toilet block next to the Bowels Club'

Its way better than the one from Townsville a few years ago:

'No children passed this point'

Good night readers.

Charters Towers Qld July 18, 2015

Charters Towers Qld July 18, 2015

Another full day of travel, this time 370 km straight up from Clermont to ‘CT’, the only civilisation between them being a tiny tiny roadhouse at Belyando Crossing. The crossing, going south to north is easily missed. As we sat and ate a sandwich and sipped on instant coffee, we watched the vans we had passed do as we did, miss it completely and have to turn back down into the northern entry. 

Borrowed this of the 'net. Balyando Crossing, Qld

When I say no civilisation, I mean no little town or pubs or whatever, but there are plenty of stations posted on either side, including Avon Downs and Victoria Down. We seem to be on the back slope of the Great Dividing Range, it is undulating country but fast open road despite its ‘Development Road’ status in the book-of-maps. Leading up to the crossing, the big fields on either side appeared to be growing Sorghum, its russet coloured flowers looking just like mud to the driver concentrating on the road. One thing I could not miss though, were the large greyish white heads poking above the sorghum, Brolgas by the hundreds as it turned out. They didn't have it all their own way though, the emu’s were plentiful as well. 

North of the crossing the country turned into cattle country with Brahman and DroughtMaster the prevalent breeds and we saw our first Bustards and Curlews as well. We also lost count of the number of ‘dead’ cars off the side of the road, a reminder that this is, despite being only 300km from the coast, the outback. The point is that if you are driving an older car not worth more than a few thousand dollars, and it breaks down, it’s going to cost you way more than that to have it recovered to a major centre, not to mention getting it fixed. And beside, leave it alone for a day or two and the vultures and vandals will have had their way with it.

Anyhow, we made it into CT by 2 o’clock, only to find the town closed except for the supermarket and the info centre. Next to the info centre is the old stock exchange, where golden hopes were traded in a frenzy and fortunes made and lost. We had lunch at the cafe: mini rump, mash and beans for me and a steak sandwich for Judy. Very tasty.

The rodeo is on tonight and we may just mosey on down to have a look. Yeehaa!

Clermont Qld July 17, 2015

Clermont Qld July 17, 2015

We wakeup this morning to find thick ice on the car and a frigid breeze blowing. Not wanting to stay a moment longer we were packed and gone by 830 and heading to Injune, north of Roma which we reached in just an hour or so. We spent the next few hours skirting around the base of the Great Dividing Range escarpment, and started looking for an early lunch at Rolleston, which proved to be little more than a flea-bight and so on to Springsure, where we at least were able to feed the car, if not ourselves. We pushed on up through to Emerald and settled for a coffee and chicken wrap at a large fast-food outlet. 

After a suitable rest reading the Central Qld News, we hit the last leg of our day’s run up to Clermont, which turns out to be off the highway and a quiet little place. Well, it looks quiet but a bit of a poke around reveals plenty of housing development. They have a really nice lagoon in town called Hoods Lagoon, complete with bridge and fountains. The town was originally established next to this lagoon, but following the floods of 1916, when 65 people drowned, the moved the town further up the hill.

Hoods Lagoon. Clermont Qld

Hoods Lagoon. Clermont Qld

 They also have a unique mural up near the railway line: 4 old carriages all painted up with a country / mining mural. Apparently Clermont was also the site of the first gold rush in Queensland in 1861. 

Murals. Clermont Qld

Murals. Clermont Qld

Murals. Clermont Qld

Murals. Clermont Qld

I couldn't help but take a few snaps of some old vans dumped out the back of the park, which is a funny little place really: a mix of travellers, fossickers and permanents, not to mention campers down the bottom in the dirt area. We are right opposite a toilet block, but its closed and full of old mattresses and has more old dead vans dumped behind it.

End of the road for these old vans. Clermont Qld