This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Category Archives: 2000 Travels


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2000 Travels May 19

FRIDAY 19 MAY   RUBYVALE TO LONGREACH   409kms

The day did not look promising.

We packed up, hitched up and got away alright, in the rain and mud.

It was a pleasant enough drive back through the range country and on to Jericho, where we stopped again to eat lunch.

Stopped again, briefly, in Barcaldine, to have a look at the Tree of Knowledge. This ghost gum was supposed, during the 1890’s Shearers’ Strikes, to have been the site of meetings from which grew the ALP. It was right outside the railway station.

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The Tree of Knowledge at Barcaldine

From there, we pressed on to Longreach, through mostly flat black soil and Mitchell grass country. The weather did not improve as we headed west.

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Threatening skies between Barcaldine and Longreach

Booked into the Gunnadoo Caravan Park, on the eastern edge of town, not far from the Stockmans Hall of Fame. Cost us $17 for a powered site. It seemed quite a slick operation and a fairly large park. Due to the day’s rain, it was rather muddy. We paid for two nights.

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Muddy caravan park at Longreach

As we only expected to stay a couple of nights, did not bother to put out the awning. We did have a cement slab where we could put the table and chairs, if it was fine enough to do so.

Tea was stir fried vegetables and rice.

I phoned K and left a message as to where we are.

About 8.30pm, we got quite a fright, when a big jet plane flew over us – very low! Only then did we realize we were right by the airport – and right under the runway approach.

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From Rubyvale to Longreach. Also shows the route when we went to Rockhampton.


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2000 Travels May 18

THURSDAY 18 MAY     RUBYVALE

I took advantage of the good weather to do the washing.

Then we set out, taking our solo traveller R with us, to sieve a barrow of wash at the Miners Cottage. But the man was away in Rockhampton. So we went to the Heritage instead and sieved a bucket each. We did alright, getting four cutters.

Took all our findings from the time here, to J at Old Micks. She found we had, overall, ten cutters, all small, which we left with her to be cut. We were to phone her at the end of the month, to arrange COD delivery.

John washed Truck. We packed up as much as we could. It was a good thing that we did, because it rained during the night, and the mud came back!

Tea was fries, with flathead for John and ray (Qld flake!) for me.

We were finding it hard to leave Rubyvale – it is a good-feeling place.


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2000 Travels May 17

WEDNESDAY 17 MAY     RUBYVALE

We were up early, to leave for Emerald by 8am, for bowls.

It was a pleasant morning. I played adequately. We met a local lady at bowls, who lives between the Willows and Glen Alva, the southernmost areas of the gemfields  here. She said we could go fossick on their place. Next time? We really do need to start moving west again now.

We used our meal vouchers at the club and had an enjoyable meal.

Refuelled Truck – now 85cpl.

It was mid afternoon when we got back to camp. We just lazed about for the rest of the day.

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Rainbow lorikeets, crested pigeons and apostle birds

At one stage, John asked me what the puddle was, on the van floor. Yet again, he had turned off the fridge, last night, to reduce interference on the TV he was watching – and forgotten to turn it back on. Yet again, I was cross! Most of the freezebox contents appeared to be still frozen, so I kept them and hoped they would be ok. But I didn’t risk putting the chicken breasts back, so they became sweet and sour chicken, for tea.


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2000 Travels May 16

TUESDAY 16 MAY     RUBYVALE

Late morning, we drove out to Retreat, to fossick again at our previous spot there. Again, there was no show of sapphire.

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Some yobbos from a camp out there hooned down in their vehicle, drinking beers. They said the gravel wash where we were was not the right kind. We had no idea how to tell the right from the wrong kind, obviously! They were very rough types. Said they’d specked a good stone, exposed after the rain, and sold it rough and were celebrating. I found them rather scary and was glad we were not camped out on the fields!

We decided fossicking was rather a dud, here, this time. It was not like when we had access to undisturbed ground out at Mt Leura.

Tea was cold corned beef again, and salad.


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2000 Travels May 15

MONDAY 15 MAY     RUBYVALE

After breakfast, we drove out to Graves Hill fossicking area, where we had not been before. This was the location that JJ had said he’d take us out to, but the silence from that direction had been deafening!

We took a lone traveller – R -with us. He tagged along in his vehicle. His wife left to go back home, six weeks ago, so he is finishing his trip on his own, and staying near us in the park.

We drove around a bit, sussing out Graves Hill, where there seemed to be quite a lot of activity, and chose a spot to dig. Took half a drum of gravel back to the water hole at Retreat, to wash. No good. This was disheartening. We thought we’d picked an area where there seemed to be a layer of gravel, but there was no colour in what we washed. We’d had to move a layer of billy boulders from the surface, before starting to dig and that had been hard work – all for no return.

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Digging at Graves Hill. Note pile of shifted billy boulders

We gave up, after a while, and tipped out the remaining gravel.

I think R learned the methodology of fossicking for such stones, even if not the technique for actually finding same! He seemed to enjoy the companionship.

Back in town, checked for mail. I had a Mothers Day card from R – nice.

R brought us over a frozen pack of home grown chicken breasts, for taking him out today.

Tea was cold corned beef and salad.

 


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2000 Travels May 14

SUNDAY 14 MAY     RUBYVALE

Today was Mothers Day – and lovely weather, again.

We had discovered that eating meals outside the van, as we prefer to do, could be a hazard, due to the ultra-friendly scavenging lorikeets! I was not sure whether John or the birds got the major share of his breakfast, today.

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John trying to eat his weetbix

I washed my bowls clothes, and the trial place mat for S, which I’d finished on Friday.

Walked around to the Miners Cottage and bought and sieved a big bucket of wash. There are a number of enterprises on the gemfields who sell buckets or barrows of wash – gravel they mine from their claims,  usually from shafts too deep for fossickers like us. It is the easy way – and possibly the smartest – to go fossicking!

Our bucket cost us $15 and we found a couple of cutters.

Got chatting to the owner. He offered to sell us his claim, two accommodation flats and the mining gear, for $150,000. It seemed everything here was for sale – for a price!

The vacant block we’d seen the other day, being sold for rate arrears, fetched $18,000.

I had a phone message from S, and a call from V – nice to get.

Tea was corned beef I cooked and served with vegies.


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2000 Travels May 13

SATURDAY 13 MAY   RUBYVALE

I walked to the store for the paper.

We left about 11am, to go to bowls in Emerald.

Stopped at Emerald shops before bowls. I collected my photos, bought some oddments of supplies, bought some lunch.

Bowls was quite pleasant. There were not many there. We encountered a couple who came from Wynyard, in Tasmania, so had something to chat with them about. The team John played in won – he collected a voucher for a meal at the club. His skip, a local miner, gave John his voucher, so we had two and planned to go in on Wednesday morning and play, and then have lunch at the club.

It was dusk when we were driving back to Rubyvale. The sky was most spectacular with some really lovely light effects. Of course, I didn’t have my camera.

That was a 130km round trip – just to play bowls!

Tea was salad and tinned red salmon.


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2000 Travels May 12

FRIDAY 12 MAY      RUBYVALE

Today was a rest day from digging. It was a pleasant, sunny day, again. Weatherwise, that was more like it!

We walked around town, after breakfast. The township is actually a common area, so cows can roam about it – and do. Their leavings appear on the roads and footpaths. Some cow pats had unusual, long stalked toadstools growing from them. John was most taken with these!

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Toadstools growing in a cow pat on a Rubyvale footpath

Visited the gem Gallery again. They had such wonderful cut stones and made up pieces of jewellery. I could only look and wish!

Called in at Old Mick’s and saw the owner, just back from an overseas trip. From her, we chose earrings for the girls for Xmas presents for this year – amethyst for S, topaz for V, and garnet for R. $80 for the three sets, which we thought was reasonable.

The travelling fish supply truck was in town. On the advice of one of the permanent dwellers in the park, I bought some spotted ray, which I’d never heard of before.

After lunch, I did some sewing, while John went around to see if JJ was home. His wife said he’d gone to get a vehicle exhaust fixed, and that he’d had a busy week. Yeah, yeah….

Some unusual excitement when two police appeared and served a subpoena on one of the winter dwellers here – a woman, two sites up, who’d witnessed a murder, near their camper, at a Lightning Ridge caravan park, last year. That sounded like a rough place!

Tea was fries and fish – the ray was good eating.


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2000 Travels May 11

THURSDAY 11 MAY     RUBYVALE

In the morning, E invited us out to view The Castle. The road out there had been a quagmire, until today.

The Castle was built by a guy who came and settled on the gemfields. It is, in a way, a Spanish or Moorish style. He was about 40 when he started it, and it evolved over some thirty years. E bought it from him, just days before he died.

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The Castle, from the access track

The concept was that it was built to be let out as 8 units, but was never finished enough to do so. E had worked at getting it to the letting stage, and had four or five units ready to be used, with a communal kitchen and lounge.

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The Spanish styling of The Castle

The Castle was a really whimsical and interesting place – very typical of gemfields eccentricity. The builder used job lots of whatever he could come by cheaply, so nothing was very co-ordinated. There was some great workmanship, in parts; in other places it was very hit and miss, like the tiled central pool, meant to be filled by roof run off,  that did not hold water! At one end of that central enclosure was a three storey high bell tower like structure, that housed water tanks.

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The water tank tower and the leaky central pool

Unfortunately, E had an access problem that he had not anticipated. The Castle was built on a one acre Miner’s Home Perpetual Lease, but the access track is across a pastoral lease. This was taken over by a new person, a month after E bought The Castle. He can’t ban E having access, but was threatening not to allow anyone else to do so.

Whilst commercial accommodation, apart from the caravan parks, was fairly scarce, I was not sure about this venture – access issues aside. To attract backpackers and the like, which E saw as the target market, it seemed just too far out of the township.

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Outlook to the west, from The Castle

I suspect that tensions between pastoralists and miners may be fairly common, in these parts. We had heard of things like some of the rougher “campers” out on the fields, helping themselves to fresh beef. And lighting fires to make breaks around the mining camp areas – which burned well into grazing land.

John helped E for a while, to instal a gas hot water service, before we went back to the van for lunch.

After lunch ,we went back to Retreat and dug some more, with similarly poor results.

We had more mail: the new mobile phone battery. Good service from Telstra.

Tea was sweet and sour vegetable stir fry, with rice. John liked it, despite it being “vegie”.


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2000 Travels May 10

WEDNESDAY 10 MAY     RUBYVALE

In the morning, i took advantage of the finer weather to do the washing. I walked to the store for the papers that had accumulated in our absence. I lazed about and read some of these.

John helped E, the park owner, unload a trailer full of wood and lent him the big round magnet to help him find some screws he’d lost from the chainsaw.

Our mail was in – a package from home containing John’s left-behind tools, as well as normal mail.

There was no contact from JJ. Not surprising.

After lunch, drove out to Retreat, to the south west of town,  and did some digging. E hired us a Willoughby and a half 44 gallon drum.

We put the gravel we dug into buckets and washed it at a big waterhole that had been made by machine mining, to the great interest of some campers who came in while we were there. They were camped nearby, in motor homes.

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Washing gravel with Willoughby. Waterhole made by past machine mining

We found a couple of small chips of sapphire, only. The late afternoon sun was not great for trying to sort the wash in. The angle of the light was wrong.

The mozzies were really bad.

Tea was pork steaks, with apple, and salad.