Day 21 - Gemtree

The reason we chose to stop here was to go garnet fossicking and what fun we had.

We met at 8:15am to collect our fossicking equipment (which was a 20 litre water drum, a bucket, 4x sieves, a pick, a shovel and a small tin) then at 8:30am we left on a Tag-a-long tour. We drove 30 kms towards Hart Ranges and once we arrived we were shown what to do. First you have to pick the dirt, then shovel it into a bucket, then sieve all the rocks and dirt out, then place into a wet sieve to be washed in water then look up into the sun to find the shiny red garnets.

I assumed we would all swap jobs during the day but we all loved the job we started with and stayed doing the same thing. Josh was working the pick and shovel for pretty much 4 hours. He was a machine and has an eagle eye and was picking out the garnets before they went through the sieve and water. He wanted to keep going when the rest of us were too exhausted. I wish I had taken a photo of the before and after shots of the trench he dug!

Bronte had a great day doing a bit of everything - digging and shovelling, sieving the dirt and washing with water and checking the garnets in the sun and most importantly eating!

My job was sieving the dry dirt and rocks out and Rog was the washer and finding the shiny red garnets in the sun. I tried digging for about 5 mins and I found it so tiring so I’m not sure how Josh survived 4 hours!

We had a successful day and bagged lots of garnets.

On the 30km drive back to the caravan park we stopped at castle rock and we also saw where the Australian radar base is that monitors the waterways.

When we got back we dropped off our fossicking equipment and then took our garnets into the gemstone store to be valued. The lady sorted them into sizes and we ended up with 6x size 3 and 3x size 4 and a bag of smaller and fractured ones.

We then went back to the caravan for lunch and a shower. The boys played frisbee and then the kids did some school work. We went and talked to a lovely couple that were on our fossicking tour and are right into gemstones. So they showed us lots of stones they have found and have made into rings and necklaces.

We then had leftovers for dinner, watched the sunset, watched a movie and everyone was fast asleep when their heads hit their pillows.