Wydon Crafts

8 July

Decided to move back to Rubyvale, but opted for the Rubyvale Caravan Park which looked a bit better than the Bedford Gardens one.   We were right, much nicer.

Then it was back to Willy’s Wash for some more buckets and chats with Glen, the ex-Brit owner.   Met a couple who had been to Willy’s before and showed us a ‘find’ that they got last year and had polished.   It was a non-crystal sapphire known as a ‘bomb’ – it was beautiful and they’d had it made into a pendant.   They had just found another ‘bomb’ and showed us what it was like in its raw state.   You could see markings within the stone and it was also very heavy compared to other stones and pebbles in the wash.   We found several more pieces of sapphire and zircon, some of which Glen reckoned were worth cutting.

9 July

Back again to Willy’s Wash and today we found our first ‘bomb’ – I just wonder how many we didn’t spot before we knew what to look for.   Glen recommended a local gem cutter/polisher, called Cindy and when we’d finished our 3 buckets we went round to see her – unfortunately she wasn’t there, so we headed back to the campsite, via the pub, for a well-earned rest.   It’s quite hard work this gem-washing.    There are several other ‘washes’ in the area but Willy’s seems to be the best and always has more people doing their thing there.

10 July

Willy’s again and then we called round to see Cindy again.   She invited us in while she looked at our ‘bomb’ and we ran the gauntlet of her boisterous dogs (got meself a lovely doggie-fix, I did).   As our stone was pretty big, and heavy, Cindy suggested that she could cut it in half and make two polished stones out of it.   Well – what a great idea we thought, but how much was that likely to cost.   “Oh, about $40 each” was the reply.   “Done” we said.  “Now when can you do them?   Bearing in mind, we will only be staying a few more days and would be on the road again”.   Cindy said that in fact she had about 8 weeks work ahead of her, but she would see what she could do.   She had also looked at a couple of other stones and thought that she could polish them for us too.

11 July

The next day, whilst just about finishing at Willy’s (again!!) we had a call from Cindy saying that she had done the ‘bomb’, would we like to collect it.   So we hot-footed it to her place.   What a treat was in store for us.   Two almost identical stones beautifully polished.   Both were flat backed with 5 uneven sides and the front slightly rounded.   One was 59.1 carats and the other was 58.55 carats (apparently the total uncut weight was around 130 carats)   Unfortunately bombs have no real value – about $25 a kilo!)  She was still working on the other two – one another smaller bomb and what looked as if it would end up as a star sapphire).    We showed them to a jeweller, Ken, and his wife, Linda, who had set up shop in the Caravan Park, and who we’d got chatting to and they were very impressed with the work Cindy had done.   They were a lovely couple and I made them a pyroed sign for the side of their van.

12 July

We took our leave of Rubyvale and went the 5 or 6k down the road to Sapphire and the Sunday Market.   Whilst strolling around there we found a lady doing gold and silver wire settings for stones, and asked her if she could set our ‘bombs’ for us.    This she said she would do and after some discussion as to the style of setting we left the market, intending to book in at the Sapphire Caravan Park just over the road.    We’d already tried here once when we first arrived with no luck and it was the same now – fully booked.   So we tried another park just outside town – same thing – ‘No Vacancy’ sign outside.   Well, we certainly weren’t ready to leave the area, as the lady at the market had our stones, so we decided to head back again to Rubyvale.   The Park was nearly full but the park owner had another small plot of land up the road where he was building a house and he let us stay there.   The only problem with that was the TV reception was lousy and also it was rather lonely. 

13 July

I walked back down to the park and asked the owner if he had anywhere available on the park itself as we wus rather lonely up the top.   He said that someone was just ablout to move out and that we could set up there – so we did.    Almost opposite Linda and Ken, so that was even nicer.   Had another day at Willy’s Wash – we were getting to know Greg and young Tom, a local lad who was helping Greg during the school holidays.

14 July

We had decided that we should move on tomorrow, so we spent another day at Willys Wash before packing up ready for getting back on the road.

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1/2 July

Arrived in Rockhampton and booked in at the Riverside Caravan Park – lovely setting on the banks of the Fitzroy River.   Wandered around town and found a very reasonably priced camping cooker (which we’ll take home with us).   Nice town, but nothing really to keep us.

3/4 July

After calling in at the Visitor Information Centre in Emerald we carried on to the gemfields.   Having tried unsuccessfully to get in at a caravan park in Sapphire we continued to Rubyvale and having seen that one of the parks was called Bedford Gardens, we decided to try there.   A funny little old lady booked us in, saying that she wasn’t the owner, who would be back soon,  but she should be able to squeeze us in.   And squeeze us in she did – our first night (we booked for two) was spent behind another camper on a roadway within the park.   The following morning we were able to move to a proper spot before taking a walk through this little town.    Dotted around the area are what are locally called ‘Fossikers Washes’  and we spotted one called Willy’s Wash (actually run by a bloke called Greg).   He charged 20 bucks for three buckets of gravel, or ‘wash’.   We then have to put a couple of handfulls into a sieve and then dunk it up and down in a barrel of water.   The idea of dunking them up and down is that sapphire and zircon being heavier than other pebbles will gravitate to the centre of the sieve.   Of course Jeff was doing this part.   He then, with a flick of the wrists, upended the sieve on a piece of hessian sacking laid out on a table.   Now came my part – the delicate part.   I went through the pebbles and bit of gravel piece by piece looking for anything with a bit of colour.   Sapphires are mainly blue or green, sometimes yellow – red ones are rubies.   Zircons are clear, not to be confused with the huge numbers of bits of quartz.   Of course I found a load of these but Greg soon chucked them out when he came over to check what we’d found.   We did actually find quite a few small sapphires and zircons, nothing of great value, but of special value to us – we found ‘em.   There were about a dozen pieces, including one largish piece, that he said might be worth either cutting or polishing!!!!!   But although they’re classed as precious stones, the value of them is not great.

5 July

Decided to try out Willow Gemfields, but called in at the Market in Sapphire on our way.    Lots of sapphires and zircons on sale in all sorts of settings, plus opals, smokey quartz, agate and lots of other precious and semi-precious stones.    Mining and fossiking equipment too.   We bought a couple of metal tweezers as the plastic ones offered at the ‘washes’ are not the easiest to use.   We also bought a biggish piece of boulder opal for ten bucks and a couple of small packets of smoky quartz.

Met a family with a Blenheim cavalier who had actually spotted Betty G with our ‘Wydon’ sticker – so I even got meself a nice little ‘Cavalier fix’.

Carried on to Willow Gemfields and booked in at the Gem Air Caravan Park.    I’d phoned earlier to make sure there was a place for us and the guy said that he had a space left, but did smoke bother us?   I said that we had no problem with it and he told me that we would be next to an open fire.   When we arrived we discovered that the fire was the area where campers congregated at around 5 in the evening.    What a great idea this was.    One of the other campers arrived with a ute full of wood and kindling and another turned up just before 5 to get the fire going.    Soon afterwards other people started arriving with chairs and drinks (beer, wine, tea or coffee) – so we joined in.   What a lovely way to get to know our fellow campers, and what a lovely lot they were.    About an hour later we all dispersed to our various ‘homes’ to prepare dinner.

6 July

Went to the Bonanza Mine to have a fossick, but Ruth, the lady running it said that they were having an equipment problem and couldn’t provide any more buckets of ‘wash’.   So, having shown her the nice stone we found at Rubyvale, she told us that her husband should be able to polish it for us.   All we had to do was walk along the track to her house and ask him.   This we did and Paul said he could do it, it would cost $20 and we could collect it the following day around midday.  

We then returned to the caravan park to hire some equipment so that we could go out and dig for our own stones.    We checked out a few already dug holes that we could see belonged to nobody, and settled on a likely-looking one.    Jeff spent the afternoon digging out bucket after bucket, sieving, washing and I sorted through the resulting ‘wash’ for anything that looked remotely like a sapphire or zircon.   Did we find anything?   Of course we flippin’ didn’t!!! 

Back to the park, absolutley knackered, but ready for our evening drinkies around the fire – a great end to a fun day.

7 July

Headed back to the Bonanza Mine hoping that we would be able to have our 3 buckets of ‘Wash’ for $17.   Yup, Ruth was back in business.   So we set to, trying to find our fortunes, together with a lovely couple, Dawn and Bill, who we had met a few of times over the last two days.   They were staying at the Gem Air, but over the other side – we invited them to our campfire tonight.  

We found quite a few more bits of sapphire and zircon, some of them with the help of Ruth’s grandson, Cory – a great kid with a definite eye for the gems.

We collected our polished sapphire from Paul, Ruth’s husband.   What a lovely job he had done. Then left the Bonanza Mine with a couple of bags of ‘wash’ and Jeff went back to the Park to pick up Betty G and the equipment that we hired the other day.   We found a nice spot in the bush not too far from the Park and having set everything up, including a table so that I could sort through each sieve-full without having to bend too much, proceeded to wash our ‘wash’.   Found quite a few more good bits

Had another lovely evening around the fire, chatting to our neighbours and introducing Dawn and Bill – I think they prefer our little gathering to the one over on t’other side of the Park.

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