Judy & Brian Tour Oz

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 ch...

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. R...

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...

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 pos...

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 ...

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 founta...