Sapphires in the Gemfields near Emerald

Waking up in Emerald, breakfast, homescholing and then we're ready to go to The Gemfields... we visit an old mine that has been used in the past to find Sapphires in old river beddings several meters underground. It is really cool, and the best real life scholing for the kids, as this is far more exiting than learning in a classroom. It's unbelievable in what small holes people were crawling in for mining. Nowadays, mining is still done in this area.

Next, we buy a bucket of 'wash' (stones and sand) that comes from a nearbye mine and we get explained how we can find our own Sapphires! First get rid of the sand, then wash the stones, and then put then on a table in the sun and start looking for shiny bits. It's good fun to do, and we all find little pieces that shine a lot.

At the end a lady with lots of Sapphire knowledge sorts our stones, and tell us what we found. It feels like 'tussen kunst and kitch' (we always wanted to do that once 🤣🤣🤣). We end up with 2 pretty 'unclear' black sapphires, one very tiny rare purple one, some small bits of Sapphire and Zircon and one yellow-blue Sapphire (a so called parti) that's big enough to shape if we want to. It sounds impressive, and we did a good job, but it's not like we're rich now like the boys think 🤣.

On the way back we visit a massive dam at lake Maraboon to enjoy the view, the reflection of the sky in the lake is breath taking. And looking to the dam: everything is so big here! On the way back we see the kangaroos getting active, and we see a wild Emu! 🦘🦘🌄. With the sun lowering on the horizon we look back on a realy amazing Outback day!Read more