Rockhampton - A Rocky Weekend
Trip Start
Feb 20, 2006
1
26
55
Trip End
Ongoing
Rockhampton,
Australia
Friday, March 31, 2006
On Saturday we took a ride out to the Sapphire gemfields. On our way, we stopped at Mt. Hay Gemstone Tourist Park. It's the birth place of the famous 120 million year old thundereggs or volcanic birthstones and home to Aradon fine pewter. There, we were given a bag and a pick and explained what thundereggs look like
Capricorn Caves
. The best part, you have unlimited time to fossick and you're aloud to keep whatever you find. Tim and I were the only one's there because it was so early so the guy actually came out and helped us find some. He even cut all of our rocks for about $5 which usually costs much more. Every rock was different and so beautiful. We were told to put some varnish on them when we get home to make them shine. You can have a look at some thundereggs on the following website www.mthaygems.com.au
We continued on and enjoyed the scenery while singing to car songs. We took our time stopping to take pictures of cactuses, weird trees, cotton fields and even camels! Shortly after, we arrived in a town called Emerald. Named not for its gems but for the lush green pastures that surround the town. Usually, you can see sunflower fields but because of the drought they've been having, nothing was planted this year. At least we got to see "the big Easel" which is a 23 metre canvas of Van Gogh's sunflowers (the biggest in the world)
It was about 5:00 pm when we arrived in Rubyvale so we decided to find a place to stay for the night. We found a really nice place, it was almost like a B&B and right next store, you could visit their gallery. Before this trip, we had no idea that sapphires came in every colour of the rainbow. The following website will show where we stayed as well as the gallery www.rubyvalegemgallery.com
The next day, we visited the Miner's Heritage Walk-In-Mine and took an underground mine tour
Capricorn Caves 10
. Afterwards, we were shown how to identify the different types of sapphires. Other people from the tour bought a monthly license for $8.00 and left right away. There are public areas where you can go and hand dig on your own. Because Tim and I were only there for the day, we ended up buying a bucket of dirt for $7.00. We had a lot of fun washing the rocks and going through them. We put the ones we thought were sapphires in a little bag and when we were done brought them inside to have them identified. We're sure they already went through the buckets but we ended up finding 11 small sapphires.
In the afternoon, we headed back to Rockhampton. The next day, we visited a crocodile farm. There was another couple from the hostel that joined us as we still had our rental. They were from South Korea and had already been in Australia for 8 months. We were the only ones on the tour so we got to hold one at the end of the tour. Of course, it was only a small one! Our guide even brought out a baby for us to see. To give you an idea of the size of this place, there's over 3000 crocs on the farm and representatives from Gucci were there.
After the tour, we went back to the hostel and dropped off the other couple and headed towards the Capricorn caves, a series of limestone caves. Right at the opening of the caves, when you looked up, you could see hundreds of butterflies. Our guide was really fantastic and made the tour very interesting
Capricorn Caves 11
. There's one area called the Cathedral where the acoustics are amazing. They celebrate everything from weddings to Christmas carols there.We came back to the hostel to have a snooze and pack our stuff. We're taking the bus at 3:00 am and going to Townsville which is only 400 km from Cairns. It will be another long ride as we expect to get in around 2:00 pm. From there were going directly to Magnetic Island. A secluded oasis, where trails lead to 23 secluded beaches. It's also supposed to be one of the largest natural koala sanctuaries. The guide book says that you can spot koalas on the trails so we will see. There's diving courses from the beach, jet ski tours around the island, horse riding on the beach and plenty of snorkeling. We read about this place back in Sydney and we're looking forward to staying there for a few days.
