Monday, December 15, 2014

Sapphire. Sort of.


So we had planned to stop in Emerald once more, but had gained a day somewhere and were ahead of our schedule. We decided to go fossicking in Sapphire instead. I have ALWAYS rung ahead at caravan parks, as we are so large we need to discuss sites and availability. But this whole inland leg, it seemed such a waste of time. Every caravan park was deserted, and at Longreach we parked sideways across 3 sites for ease. We did the same somewhere up north too. Its just so quiet here, we are waiting for the Christmas holiday peak season to hit, but Im writing this on the 14th December and the caravan park here on the beach is still less than half full. Every caravan park on the Capricorn Hwy was a wide open paddock with no green grass and very little shade so I didnt bother ringing ahead to Sapphire. The park we chose even had the big rig icon, so all was good... NOT! Wasnt that the worst move ever?!

We realized when we were halfway up the only hill in the area, surrounded by trees. We got to the entrance, at the end of a dead end street and the managers were most surprised to see us. There was no way Bertha was fitting in their park. It was NOT the bare open paddock all the others were. It was a gorgeous, treed, bush paradise with a stunning pool and we were most disappointed we could not fit. And most concerned as to how we were going to get out! There was no lovely lane we could drive around to get out. There was no road we could keep driving on. There was only a 5-ways and we needed to get Bertha 180degrees around to go back down the road we came in on! Eek.

After half an hour of too-ing and fro-ing, discussions (and swear words) over the radio and the managers getting out a broom and ladder to lift a low-laying wire, we were finally out. It was rather stressful, one of the worst spots weve gotten into over the year, as Dunc was not happy to reverse down a hill on a public street - cant imagine why?? Ironically, we made our way to a caravan park in Anakie, which was NOT big rig capable, and fit perfectly into one spot. And I rang in advance. Poor Dunc was starving before we arrived in Sapphire and was ready to kill someone by the time we got to Anakie. I cheered him up with the promise of dinner at the pub next door, but they were painting their kitchen so it was noodles on Bertha instead. L Not one of our best days.

We spent the late afternoon fossicking for sapphires at the caravan park. The lovely Graeme was so helpful in showing us how to use the equipment as the process was a little different to the way we looked for garnets at Gemtree way back in the NT.



We had a lovely and relaxing evening looking for stones and ended up working by torchlight! Lexie and I were up early the next morning to finish our bucket of wash and we ended up with quite a collection of little gemstones ranging in colour from yellow to deep blue.

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