Gemseek in Sapphire Central Queensland

Sapphires are one of my favourite gemstones and some of the best come from Sapphire in central Queensland, so I was very excited to visit for the first time and the prospect of finding some of my own. We had heard that Big Besse fossicking field was easy access for the caravan considering the recent rain and here you can camp besides your digging so we headed straight to the fossicking area.

The Blue hollow mine is situated right beside Big Besse and it’s always good to have a yarn with the locals before setting camp. Peter & Debbie owner operators of the mine were more than welcoming and before long we had all the contacts we needed for a successful film shoot and comfortable stay.

 

It’s great when things fall into place and they certainly did in Sapphire within a couple days we were filming. We saw various ways to mine for sapphires, from the old fashioned windless winch still in operation, and the smallest of tunnels known as “tummy tunnels” used to reduce the amount of dirt needing to be moved and usually no more than a bucket height. These tummy tunnels were way too small for me to crawl through and thankfully too wet. After the recent rain the tunnels needed to be pumped out before anyone could go down.

Rain had been a constant problem since 2008 when the area suffered a 100 year flood. The photographs of the flood were impressive but did not reflect the suffering felt from the effects, small hand miners in particular and many still have not recovered from their loss.

We set our camp at Big Besse right on the hill overlooking Blue Hollow mine, but as soon as the chores were done I was off to have a scratch around. The gravel wash level is 1-2 foot deep and very easy to access. There were many abandoned holes from the previous season so it wasn’t long before I was head down and bottom up down a hole. Usually water for washing the gravel is scarce but thanks to Mother Nature that wouldn’t be a problem this visit, but there is a good and bad side to many things and excess water brought the mosquitoes in their thousands and hot humid weather.

What I did not expect to find during my scratching time was Opal, that’s right Boulder Opal beside the caravan in the dirt. I suspect a previous fossicker had bought a bag of wash from an Opal area and sieved it at Big Besse, how amusing, and there were a couple of nice pieces too.

Our visit to film the Desperado mine in Rubyvale some 10kms away was a great adventure into underground mechanical mining for sapphires. Peter is a one man band underground with camera remote operation above ground; he literally could be in two places at once. The mechanical digger and front end tipper increase the amount of dirt moved per day dramatically and their claims had produced many fine sapphires over the years. Eileen his wife managers their shop The Gem Gallery were you can view their exquisite home grown jewellery.

We have found some extremely talented people living in out back places and Sapphire/Rubyvale was no exception. From master jewellers and craftsman to engineers who are shipping their home grown VJ faceting machine all over the world. Who would'nt want one of these machines, easy to use and with a life time garrentee.



It was also very refreshing to meet young people digging who are just as enthusiastic as their  pioneering forefathers; like 83 years young, Bill Hagan (Gem trader) born & bread in Rubyvale. We were honoured to spend a wonderful couple of hours chatting with Bill about the old boom days and the struggles they faced and he was very keen to show us his treasures from those days, a very fine collection.

 Our very busy 10 day visit to Sapphire and Rubyvale was soon over and yet we still did not have that special keep sake stone to take home, so we decided to take a couple of days out and camp at Glenalva near the Willows some 30kms west and renowned for good parti sapphires. 

The first morning at Glenalva Laurie (my partner) and I really got into moving some dirt as it was a nice overcast day and perfect for digging. Laurie left the site to make lunch and that’s when it happened, a very nice clean blue/ green 25 caret sapphire with a yellow ting in the centre, sitting right in the middle of my last sieve before lunch.

I hopped and skipped back to Laurie at camp it was the special we had been looking for. We dug with gusto many more buckets that afternoon and the next day but to no avail, we had our special that was it but Glenalva we’ll be back.

We are now off to Theresa Creek Dam, near Clermont in Central Queensland for some Gold detecting lessons with our new Mine lab detectors, and a new adventure into Red Claw netting, so till then stay safe,

And remember look after those Gems!

AL.B & Laurie C