Natural sciences loop road

Starting at Charleville, the natural sciences loop road takes in Cooladdi, Quilpie, Eromanga, Noccundra Thargomindah, Eulo, Cunnamulla Wyandra and returns to Charleville. The loop is just under 1,000 klms long and we chose not to do the remaining 200 odd from Cunnamulla through Wyandra to Charleville because our plan is to head south. We have veered off the road from Eulo for a couple of days exploring Yowah and the opal fields there.
Natural sciences because it takes in astronomy through the cosmos centre at charleville, birdwatching at the many wetlands throughout the area, dinosaurs at Eromanga where Titanosaurus (Cooper) was found and they are working on others as well. Geology through the oil, gas and opal fields. History and heritage, we were only 180klms away from the Burke and Wills "dig tree". One thing not mentioned is the Magic.. The magic of the red soils out here. The colour is just as rich as that of the deep centre of Australia and the magic appears to be that hold that the coloured sands get over you. If you have been to this type of country, you will know what I mean.
The people out here are friendly as well. Something that  is synonymous with the remote style of community here. We met Eddie again, the Opal Hunter from Quilpie. We first met Eddie at Winton where he was fitting out an old butchers shop as a new opal business for him. Just by chatting with him, he suggested we drop in at Quilpie and have a look around and we did. Eddie explained the areas that opal is found and strangely follows the shoreline pattern of the ancient Eromanga sea that stretched from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the great Australian bight.On the map you can see how these areas are linked. At quilpie, the altar in St.Finbarrs catholic church is opal, as is the pulpit and the font. All beautiful stone. Today is the first continuous rain that we have seen since leaving the sunshine coast in June and the sound of rolling thunder, the odd strike of lightning and this area are all magic as well.
Yesterday we saw a couple of "new" parrots and upon consulting the book were able to name them as ring necked parrots, the same sort we had seen in the Flinders ranges two years ago.

Every Picture Tells a Story

Every Picture Tells a Story

Every Picture Tells a Story

Willows and beyond

Our time at the Willows this year is rapidly drawing to a close. We leave here next Wednesday morning and head West to Ilfracombe overnight. A couple of nights after that will see us at Mount Isa again.
My last report stated that not much had been found here this year and I am able to report that I have kept up that average despite shifting a lot of rocks and sifting a lot of dirt. Thats the way it is on the diggings. The Gemfest at Anakie has been and gone for another twelve months. Our first this year so we bought a $20- passport that gave us admission over the four days. Admission is usually $10- each per day so we went on 3 of the 4 days of the event. We took our stones in to be sent to Thailand to be cut and we had 32 of them which included some of our garnets from the Northern Territory that we found last year. We look forward to getting a nice little package in the mail in a few weeks time. Thailand because they are honourable, honest and cheap cutters/polishers of your valuable stones.They send representatives to Gemfest each year for that sole purpose.
The mercury has started to rise and several people complaining of the heat. We had 31C in our annexe yesterday and now have the air conditioning on again today.
Liz Speed from Emerald Photographics came out the other day to take photos of Marg. and I and our vehicles and the magnificent Kumho tyres. Kumho want to use us in a National release soon, stay tuned.
We will miss the friends we have met up with from last year at the Willows and some new ones as well. The Owners, Steve and Rea have sold the park and are hitting the road after 20 years here.The park may change by the time we are here again. Bon Voyage you two, enjoy the lifestyle that you have served over those years.....

Willows- Gemfields

It is difficult to realise that we have been here for three weeks already. Believe me when I say that we are busy while here. Digging and fossicking for sapphires is usually a morning thing, right? Yep, right. Off we go out to the diggings that in themselves can change incredibly from place to place. We have dug at the area known as "Steptoe" and have given it ago at the "Duffer" and more recently we have dug out the back of '"Bonanza" which is a commercial mine.
Afternoon, the shadows and therefore, the light changes, so not many dig, sieve and/or wash after 2.00pm. This change in light changes the circumstances to the point that sapphires are more easily seen in morning light.
So, return to camp, covered in dust, get showered changed and a leisurely afternoon until the fire is lit. Around the fire at happy hour, mixed reports come to light, generally this year, not a lot being found. Go figure???
 Sapphires are the product of a volcanic explosion millions of years ago and are actually, the cooled down sparks. The time it took to cool gives them their various colours. At the willows, the traditional (major) colour is green, but you can still find blue sapphire or yellow or brown (star) or pink or it seems even Australian diamonds here. YES DIAMONDS!! WOW.
Camp ground activity is not restricted to fire pit conversations at all, indeed  Tuesday afternoon, ladies craft and at night there is darts for those who would like to participate, no experience necessary. Friday arvo for ladies craft, Saturday mornings a forge is lit for pick sharpening and Saturday evening, the local rec club have an evening cook up with raffles and a singer. Pork on a spit, Christmas in July (7 courses) and tomorrow its a stockmans feed (3 dinner courses, pea & ham soup, corned beef and veg and bread and butter pudding) sounds pretty good. Problem we have had so far is the massive size of the serves. Park owners put on free pancakes each Sunday morning before we head off into town.Sunday market is on at Sapphire about 30klms away with lunch at Rubyvale, another 8klms and home for fish and chips from the rec club. The guys leave the fire to go, have a beer while waiting for the order to be cooked, return and eat around the fire.. All very nice and reasonably priced.
We also allow ourselves a longer trip for more general shopping to the largest of the nearby towns Emerald which is a good hours drive from here, with all the National supermarkets represented there.. Lunches have been very good at the local Irish Tavern.
Emerald is still a major service town to the mining industry and I expect that this will continue. As such, it is difficult getting into a caravan park here and mining vehicles are the major types of vehicles on the streets and in the supermarket car parks.

Fraser Island and Rainbow Beach

Its been a while since we stayed at Rainbow Beach, about 30 years as a matter of fact. Rainbow has lost none of its beauty, seascapes or wonderful sand dunes including the coloured sands.Now there is quite an up-market shopping centre that caters for all needs. Not your grand Stockland or anything like that, this IS Rainbow Beach after all. We had a great meal at the local pub on one of  "My turn to cook" nights but the rest of the time we self catered. Any shopping requirements were ably met by visiting the local IGA. We also had a few pre-dinner drinks at the local Bowling club and that was fine. The highlight of our stay though was undoubtedly our trip to Fraser Island. Stay tuned for more details on that one.
We met a lovely couple from Port melbourne, Bill and leigh, their site was diagonally opposite ours and we hit it off well. Bill and I went pumping yabbies together out at Inskip Point and later fished together at that same beach. We had a few happy hours with them and they left the day before we did. On that day, we went out to Inskip on  our own and had a go at the deep sand to get into, but not on, the beach. The Khumo tyres worked a treat. This was really deep sand and i didn't even have to engage low range to get through. the Landcruiser and the Khumos make a formidable team. Our next time there I engaged low range, as well as using the diff locker and it was even easier. The furrows in the sand were about 30cm deep and we had no trouble at all.
We have moved on and have left the coast behind as we left Yeppoon, Rockhampton and Emerald travelling West. A couple of nights at Sapphire/ Rubyvale and on to The Willows gemfields where we have met up with Ivan and Sally once again.The first day after set up/ arrival yesterday for us both and we are out on the diggings searching for those elusive sapphires. Nothing to report on that front at the moment but wait for it, it will happen.....