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Read and rate Travel Journal Entries for Sapphire, Queensland, Australia

Jun 9, 2011 - Aus - Day 37 - Still Hunting

We set the alarm for an early wake up call to get a good heads start on fossicking before we needed to take the gear back. Cold, gloomy grey with drizzling rain. No sun to help us out spotting our gems as we fossicked. However Jason continued to dig all morning, sieving away dumping out the rocks and us combing through for sapphires. The entire morning went by so fast however we did find some very nice gems. When it was time to go I gave the "payload" to Jason to carry so I would not spill the container and loose our morning finds. As I'm...

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Jun 8, 2011 - Aus - Day 36 - River bank fossicking

Guess who woke us up this morning by walking on top of the van, actually running back and forth....yep Frank and he brought his friend with him. So of course we had to supply them with some peanuts. Frank's friend caught the peanut in mid air showing off his stuff. We left Graves Hill and drove into town to the local Sapphire general store. We rented a shovel, pick and two sieves for the day. We drove down to the river and carried our supplies down to the rock bed near the stream. There were a few claims already made to some of the trees...

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Jun 7, 2011 - Aus - Day 35 - Graves Hill

This morning we decided to go specking again rather than sieving by the river so we drove into Graves Hill designated fossicking park. You take a winding gravel road past hard core locals who call their little shanties home into the park. We called a little patch a ways off the beaten track home for the day. Hot weather with little to no wind to help keep you cool. We got on all fours and started our treasure hunt. I had a bird land right beside me and follow me for a while. It was freaking me out a bit, Jason of course was laughing his...

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Jun 6, 2011 - Sapphire gem and town history

Sapphire gem and town history: The sapphire gemfields cover almost 900 square kilometers of one of the world's most significant sapphire bearing grounds. The townships of Rubyvale and Sapphire are surrounded by the 11,000 acre Miner's Common, an area gazetted at the turn of the last century as a place for miners to graze their cattle and horses. It is the only miner's common left in Queensland. Sapphire (town) has been mined since the late 1800's, the landscape is as much a part of the lifeblood of Sapphire as the rich treasures of the...

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Jun 6, 2011 - Aus - Day 34 - Gems

Sapphire - Fossicking Day! As you start to drive around Sapphire you notice all the little hills (mounds of dirt) that make up the landscape. Scars left over from the large scale machinery fossicking days that had taken place years before. Wild horses and free range cattle roam the streets looking like they know where they are heading. Lorikeets and large white parakeets are found everywhere in large groups in the nearby trees. No matter how many times I see them I‘m still in awe of their beauty. The town of Sapphire itself is very small,...

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Aug 26, 2009 - Sapphire

I took a little 350k detour inland from the coast, at least in this part of the world thats a small detour. My detour took me to a small mining town called Sapphire which, not surprisingly, is famous for the mining of sapphires. Now for a small but nevertheless interesting little fact, sapphires are blue, right? Well yes they are, and other colours as well such as green, yellow aand pink. Apparently blue became the most well known colour because Thai gem buyers bought a lot of the early sapphires and only wanted the blue ones, which they...

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