How to make a girl happy in Rubyvale - Monday 9th July

We have become quite good at using a variety of websites to predict what weather we will be getting in the next week. Armed with this information we have booked a cabin for Wednesday so that we can pack up in the least rain possible and be ready to ride Thursday morning. Without staying a ridiculously long time here in Rubyvale we are not going to escape riding in some rain. Our prediction for Monday turned out correct, grey cloudy skies but still escaping the rain. Tuesday is going to be bad so we must do all our final exploring Monday.

Our preference is to do things on foot and as it requires crossing a concrete floodway with the smallest amount of water already flowing over it, it is now or never. Then we walked a couple of Km's out to check out a few more mines and gem shops. Looking is great but most stones are out of our price bracket. There are a lot of people living in very ordinary shanty type dwellings and are obviously not making a fortune with the sapphire mining. This gem field had been worked and worked over since the mid 1800's with the only difference now is the amount of dirt that they can process with modern machinery. Most mines are on ground that has been mined once if not twice before. Only three Gem shops have modern buildings and nice showrooms, the rest are a bit of a lean to room on the side of their shanty homes.

Trish drools over the expensive large stones but does have a realistic look at affordable ones in Sterling Silver settings. After the walk back and a bit of lunch it was off for another 3km round trip out to a gem shop run by Sarah Crumble, with muddy creek crossing, long grass and rough dried mud we finally made it. It turned out we were the first through the door since she set up a couple of weeks ago. The "shop" small dark and dusty and then there was the rather sad Sarah Crumble with her cute little dog Rascal. We felt we couldn't leave straight away as she tried to get enough light to see sapphires which would normally flash with colour but instead they were dark and lifeless. She told us sadly as she showed us the stones that her husband had died recently and she was having trouble getting back into it. It was very sad and as was reflected in the dull lifeless stones and the only cheerful one was little Rascal the dog.

On the walk back past all the shanty houses I couldn't help think that these people were like people addicted to gambling and hoping for but not getting their lucky strike. We had been warned to stay away from a place called Willy Wash ( even the name sounds a bit suss ) He is supposed to be a "abusive drunk" but let'Ss judge for ourselves, so with a bit of trepidation we headed into "Willy Wash". We were greeted cheerfully by Willy and Trish asked to see some stones. He disappeared into his shack and came out with some little boxes of stones. He said he didn't like "tyre kickers" - people who look but not going to buy. Trish explained that really we were "tyre kickers" and instead of getting the abuse we had been warned about Willy reckoned we were Ok and proceeded to show us his stones. After an enjoyable "tyre kicking' time with Willy we thanked him very much and headed off. As predicted by us the weather was starting to turn and spit a scattered few drops of rain. Trish has a birthday in December so it was a good excuse to get some sort of memento of Rubyvale so we headed out on the Honda to Sapphire and one of the well set up showrooms and a friendly guy called Jim.

We had a fair idea which rings Trish wanted to look at and after asking Jim to show us this one then that one he finally said "help yourself", so Trish spent her time with her hands in the back of the display case while Jim went off and did other things. I didn't have my camera to get a shot of Trish with her hands in the "cookie jar" while Jim's back was turned, pity. The agonizing that went on over a ring valued at around $100 would put any negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians to shame but finally came the hard bargaining with Jim. A $120 sapphire ring for $100 and everyone happy. My plan ( silly me ) was to put the ring away until Trish's birthday in December, silly me! There is no chance of getting it off her finger now. "You will hide it from me!" Where do you hide something on two motorbikes and a small trailer. The smile on her face when I catch her admiring it every few minutes is worth her having it early. To make a girl happy in Rubyvale for a $100 how could you go wrong.

Generous Dave