Sunsets on Glen Alva

After 15 days our time at Glen Alva fossicking for sapphires has come to an end. Some of our group have met with reasonable success and some have not been so lucky.

After extending our stay here for an extra day, very few cutters have been won in the last 2 days.

Marie and Vern and Ross and Wanda departed this morning for Mount Surprise to chase topaz. Barry and Dawn and Kay and Rick also departed for Longreach where the rest of the group will meet them tomorrow.

Jane and Joel have been doing over the tourist spots with sieving buckets of dirt. Jane was successful in getting a 20carat blue sapphire from one bucket.

Sunset this evening was coloured by a frontal system moving in from the west, so it was very appropriate to have some photos to symbolise the ending of this part of our trip.

Tomorrow we start heading for opal country and thankfully less heavy digging.

Big Sapphires Keep Coming.

Last Saturday, after a storm on Friday night, some of our group spent the day specking. In a gully that we hadn't dug before Marie found a 6.1ct pale blue sitting on the side of a small gully. Garry and Marie decided to move their diggings to this area on Monday. In the first bucket of wash Garry found a 9.93ct green sapphire. A guess the weight competition was organised with all 21 having a go The closest was Jane who won a very nice cut garnet donated by Garry. The rush was then on and further good stones were dug by Garry and Marie.

By Wednesday, Milton, Ross and Wanda and I were all in "Marie's Gully" trying our luck. Milton,Ross, Garry, Marie and I were all in the same part of the gully where Marie specked the first stone. Graham and Pam joined in the rush on Thursday but dug in the lower part of the gully. Milton got some nice cutters from his channel.

On Friday, Garry took 185 carats of sapphire and zircon from the Gully but the rest of us could only manage small chips.

Today with the last full day of digging ahead of us Ray and Toni joined in the dig at Marie's Gully. Before morning tea, I was lucky to pick up a lovely large green sapphire in the quarter inch sieve. Garry adjudged that my stone was heavier than his, and the enthusiasm lifted in all of the diggers. A guess the weight competition in the afternoon at happy hour resulted in Colin getting nearest (weight of 16.09cts) and winning a very bright piece of polished boulder opal. Garry, not to be outdone bagged 158 carats for the day, with one stone being over 24 carats but with some flaws. In the afternoon I again bagged the best stone of the session with a 6.68carat absolutely crystal clear emerald green, with a teal blue showing on the opposite axis.

In tonight's session, yes tonight, Ross was the clear winner returning home with a 26 carat stone that appears by torch to be pale yellow green, but it does have some flaws. Ross decided to put in a few hours tonight sieving stones ready to wash tomorrow morning and found the giant in his half inch sieve. The find excited camp members and there was a passing suggestion for us to take down some flood lights to get into the sieving but the coolness of the night soon prevailed.

At this afternoon's hapy hour, it was agreed to extend our stay at Glen Alva by one day and do away with the planned day trip from Winton to Opalton.

Happy hour is now a big circle with our party currently numbering 23, having been joined earlier in the week by Judy and Warren and yesterday by Rick and Kay, who are friends of Barry and Dawn from Hervey Bay club.

Photo Log of the Big Fossick

We are now getting an assortment of photos from the trip and rather than attach a few to the blog I will load them to Panoramio.

http://www.panoramio.com/user/3382138

Week 1 At Glen Alva

One full week of digging has gone for most of the group. To date the finds have been fairly poor. There have been some cutting size sapphires found but they are not large. I think Ross currently has the largest stone found at just on 7 carats.

The group has fossicked 2 large gullies and although chips have been found regularly, larger stones have been very hard to come by. Ross, Ray, Graham, Colin, Milton and Marie have all worked "Duffers Gully" - a shallow gully that has seen extensive digging but failed to yield much in the way of decent stone. I bagged a 3.48ct green on the first day, but after 3 more days of very little pulled up my willoughby and moved to the top of the ridge behind our camp.

Jane and Joel have lead a breakaway of insurgents to The Willows - firstly fossicking on the side of the road about 3kms from The Willows, where really good gem wash was found, but no sapphires. Yesterday Joel returned to camp with 3 cutters and about 30 small sapphires. Today Ray2 and Toni, Ray1,Ross and Wanda, Graham and Pam also followed Joel to the promised lands. Not a lot of success was had, but Joel probably did best again. Garry announced he had taken 40cts of saphire today from a new location - "Marie's Gully" - where Mariespecked a verey nice stone on Saturday.

On Sunday 14 of our group ventured to the Sapphire markets where we were joined by Warren andJudy. Not a lot of rough stone was on sale at the markets and some of the cut stones for sale were fairly ordinary. 12 of the party enjoyed lunch at the Rubyvale Hotel.

Carol has been kept busy today tending to injuries. Milton has been dispatched to Emerald Hospital with Barry and Dawn to have an infected foot attended to. There was speculation that Milton might be kept to have anintravenous drip with antibiotics but he was home in time for happy hour with some tablets. Warren had a fall yesterday on his initial inspection of the dig sites and has been laid up today with a stiff and sore shoulder.

Our group now number 21 and we have taken up a fairly large camping area. Parking space is at a premium. The circle of chairs at happy hour is now difficult to fit between the vans.

Tomorrow promises more great weather of cool mormings (8 degrees) warm days (22 degrees) and cloudless blue skies.

Arriving at Glen Alva

Today was a fairly easy run from Springsure into Emerald - a short trip of 66 kms. Everyone fuelled up, did some final shopping and filled all the water containers ready for the trip to the gem fields, which was another short run of 78kms to Glen Alva.

We arrived around lunch time and were met at the gate by Garry and Carol and shown to the camping area.

After setting up camp Garry showed us around the 2 gullies which are prospective for sapphires. Both gullies have been extensively dug and it is hard to see what is natural ground and what is old diggings.

In the second gully I found what looked to be an interesting spot - wash clearly obvious behind a dead tree in the bank of the gully. I claimed this spot in the traditional manner by throwing a couple of drums into the gully to mark where I was going to dig. I picked the spot because it looked to be the easiest digging of all of the sites.

I set up my gear and Ross also started in a hole in the same gully. It was pretty easy to get a couple drums of wash to sieve and put through the willoughby. In my first sieve I picked up a smallgreen of 4-5 carats which looks like it will be a cutter. Being on a winner I called it quits for the day. The rest of the group were surprised when I arrived back at camp as the stone I found ws better than Garry had found in nearly a week of digging.

Ah well tha's the luck of fossicking and tomorrow will be a different day.

Jane and Joel eventuallyoined us at Glen Alva after spending the morning at Springsure looking for Labradorite. Joel was rewarded for his efforts with some very nice clean pieces that will facet.

Photos tomorrow..

We're Off!!!

Saturday saw the main party depart from various points in south east Queensland and northern New South Wales for the 2009 major field trip of the North Brisbane Lapidary Club.

An eventful trip from Morayfield to Dalby with Milton blowin a tyre on his caravan outside of Kilcoy. By the time we got to Dalby the spare tyre had also started to delaminate. Milton had to drop out of the convoy and go for spares. At the same time Ray and Toni had a problem with their motor home and decided to have it checked in Dalby.

At Roma, Ray and Jeanine, and Jane and Joel were joined by Colin and Margaret, Ross and Wanda and Barry and Dawn from Hervey Bay Club.

The main convoy arrived in Injune by 3.30pm with Ray and Toni and Milton arriving just on dark after 5pm.

An early start the next day was too much for Jane and oel who decided to sleep in and miss the early morning sub ten degree chilly start.

The rest of the convoy made their way to Springsure and by 12.30 we were setting out for the Labradorite dig.

We spent 3 hours in the creek mainly specking, but Ross and Colin did fairly well by sieving in the bottom of the Creek. Everyone got several nice sized cutters, but Dawn bagged the biggest stone with a water worn piece a bit smaller than a golf ball.

Advance Party Arrives

Garry and Carol have arrived at GlenAlva and set up camp. Garry has picked out about 9 other camp sites close by so there should be room for the rest of the group.

The word is that the grass is very long which is obscuring the old diggings. Garry has used a novel way to sort this out - apparently burning off some grass. Probably not a good idea particularly without fire fighting equipment close by. I'm pretty sure the landowner wouldn't be too keen on fossickers if we burnt out his paddocks.
The other important news that Garry passed on was that the bakery on the Cooyar road at Dalby has pies for sale at $2 each. At this price they would have to be the cheapest pies in Australia.

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Getting Ready to Go

Well just over a week before we leave for the big trip. I have started getting all of my gear together to sustain 11 days of free camping at GlenAlva. I have had to put some new handles in my picks after the recent trip to the opal mine. Also found a great way to sharpen picks using a "flap disk" on an angle grinder. The flap disk is generally used to polish aluminium or stainless steel but I found it is very handy to trim up pick handles to the right size to fit odd shape pick heads, as well as sharpening blunt points. In addition to picks and shovels, a "willoughby" is a labour saving device for sorting sapphire from dirt. Basically, gravel containing sapphire stones is dug and then put in a sieve in the willoughby frame. The willoughby is then jiggled in water to separate the dirt from the rocks. Any heavy material (corundum or zirconium) is centred in the middle of the sieve. The sieve contents are then emptied onto a table and sorted for sapphire material.

Water is the big requirement for GlenAlva. Not only drinking water but water for showering and washing stones is also required. You probably can't carry too much water. I will be taking 4 twenty litre containers as well as the 60 litres in my caravan tank. This should last a week. Using alum (aluminium sulphate) is a neat trick to extend the use of sapphire washing water. the alum when placed in mudddy water will settle all of the dirt and clay particles out overnight, allowing clean water to be decanted off the top next day. We should be able to supplement washing water from the local dam. The dept. of Mines and Energy fossicking notes also refers to water at blackboy creek, and hopefully after a wet season this year, water will be plentiful. I will probably still have to make a trip to Rubyvale to replenish drinking water at some time through the 11 days.

Boulder opal fossicking requires different tools from sapphire fossicking. Most of the opal fossicking will be done on mullock heaps of old opal mines, checking out ironstone rocks for any trace of colour. The ironstone rocks can need splitting so a small hammer and cold chisel are essential. As the opal is similar to glass, chips can cause damage so safety glasses are essential. A small dish washing brush to wash the ironstone rocks is also a useful addition for opal fossicking.

Preparing for the Trip

Western Queensland has had a bumper wet season this year. We have just returned from 2 weeks at our opal mine west of Longreach (1,200kms, north west of Brisbane) and the flies were there in millions. Jeanine can't tolerate them and wears a fly net over her hat all day. I had problems with them getting in the corners of my eyes and getting stuck in my eyelashes.

So.... if you're coming on the major field trip make sure you have insect repellant and fly net veils.

The locals at Jundah on the Barcoo River also tell me the yellowbelly are biting so we will try and fit in some fishing time. Make sure to pack some fishing gear if you're interested.

Yabbies are also being caught in Cooper Creek at Windorah, so put in the traps if you have any.

Check out the yabbies in the photo, caught in a waterhole at our opal mine site.

2009 Field Trip Itinerary

Welcome all to this humble blog. The intent of this blog is to provide information to members of North Brisbane Lapidary Club; particularly to give regular updates on the planned 2009 major field trip.
This field trip is planned to start in Brisbane on June 20 and finish in Lightning Ridge on July 27. Overall the travellers will cover approximately 4,000 kms through central and western Queensland in the pursuit of Feldspar (Labradorite), Sapphire and Boulder Opal.