This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Tag Archives: Mud Tank


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1999 Travels July 12

MONDAY 12 JULY     GEMTREE

We had a lazy morning just sitting outside in the shade of the awning, reading.

After lunch, drove back to the Mud Tank zircon fields.

We tried further along on the flats, from where we were the other day, but found we didn’t have enough washing gear or water. There seemed to be a lot of clay sticking to the wash here, which made getting it clean enough difficult.  We did not find anything exciting, but John did get some tips from people working nearby.

I used the green rubber gloves we carry “in case”, today, to try to protect my fingernails a bit. Scrabbling around in stones is not kind to them. Found they turned my hands bright green – and it did not all wash off later! Lucky that we are not too “upmarket”, here.

We drove around and explored the Zircon Hill area, near the vermiculite mine. Drove 41kms today.

07-12-1999 Strangways Ra from Gemtree.jpg

The Strangways Range, seen from Gemtree

Tea was soup, oven baked frozen fish and French fries.

The fuel bowser is still out of action. We will need to conserve fuel, since we have to go to Alice on Friday, and they don’t know when it will be fixed. This is a vindication of John’s policy of always carrying 25 litres of fuel, in the plastic jerrycan in Truck. One cannot always rely on fuel being available, and where there is only one outlet for some distance this can create problems. Bowsers break down. The fuel delivery truck is held up. An unexpectedly large number of travellers require fuel. These things happen.


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1999 Travels July 8

THURSDAY 8 JULY     GEMTREE

We had to be at the Office for our tour by 8.45, so it was up at 7.30 for us.

The fossicking tour involved a convoy drive out to the zircon field, so we drove Truck to the Office. There was a limit of eight vehicles for the tour.

We had to line up at the Office to pick up our equipment for mining – sieves and containers of water. The Gemtree operators have “permanent” digging areas reserved at the Mud Tank Zircon Fields, about a 15km drive away. We convoyed east on the Plenty Highway for about 8kms, then turned south and followed a pretty good dirt track south for about 7kms.

We gathered around and were shown what to do: dig dirt and gravel, dry sieve, then wet sieve twice, with sieves of two different coarseness. The zircons are found in gravel layers, not too far down, it seems. There is also a lot of apetite – a yellow/green coloured stone that is soft and of little use. Just a distraction. The zircon is of variable colour – mostly a pinky brown. We were told that it cuts, or facets, like diamonds.

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Learning about zircon fossicking at Mud Tank

There were several partly dug holes in the Gemtree area, with big sieves set up already. We went to work in “our” hole. We seemed to find quite a few pieces, but most looked flawed and cracked.

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Checking out a stone to see if it is worth having – sunlight helps!

After we had worked through the morning, the Gemtree people departed, but we were allowed to keep going if we wished, with the proviso that their gear be returned when we went back.

We ate a very quick lunch that we’d brought with us, then kept working until 3pm. It was quite warm out on the diggings, with no wind of any note. Maybe winter in Central Australia is over?

07-08-1999 wendy learning about zircons

A sieve full of gravel ready for washing. This is not a clean pastime!

Before leaving, we did a quick driving explore of the diggings. There were several lots of fossickers camping out at the diggings. But there are no facilities or water out there, so it is rough camping. We decided it was much better to be at Gemtree!

There is an active open cut mine encroaching on the zircon field, where they are mining vermiculite for building with and for potting mix. Hope it doesn’t totally take over the diggings!

Back at Gemtree, we returned the gear and took our stones in to the shop, for sorting. That service is part of the tour. We had four stones worth cutting – 3x4mm and a 4.5mm one. They seemed to think that was OK.

Then we hit the showers, to clean off the dirt. It is a very dusty and muddy pastime, fossicking here. The showers were lovely and warm and most welcome.

We had the last of the vegie soup for tea, followed by pizzas that I assembled on big rounds of Lebanese bread: one potato and garlic and one tomato, capsicum, ham, olives and cheese. Very nice they were, too.

We sat out again, after tea, by the fire, star watching for a while, then had an early night – we were tired! The silence at night, out here, is wonderful.


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1999 Travels July 5

MONDAY 5 JULY     ALICE SPRINGS

Thought we’d need a quiet day, today, though the muscles and bottom are not as sore as I expected.

We did a big supermarket shop, to prepare for a week, maybe two, out at Gemtree. This is a caravan park and camping ground, some 150kms north east of Alice Springs, on the Plenty Highway, which runs east to Qld. The rationale for the caravan park here is the nearby Mud Tank Zircon fossicking area. While some fossickers rough camp on the actual field, there are no facilities there. Gemtree provides the promise of some creature comforts. We hope to find some zircons.

Picked up the mail from the Post Office and sorted it. There were two letters for John from sister H, but no personal ones for me. It is always a bit of a let down when that happens. There was a postcard from H and C, from India; they are up high in the Himalayas.

I completed some share paperwork and we went back to the Post Office to mail it off.

Bought a Territorian Lottery ticket – these have a big prize. Maybe……..

I collected the most recent film, put in earlier for processing. The Kodak place here does a good job.

Back at camp, John filled the van’s water tanks. There is only bore water out at Gemtree and they ask travellers to bring their own potable water.

I will be quite happy to leave Alice Springs, as I am feeling quite bored after three weeks here. It was too long. Two weeks would have been better, though the time did allow us to hide away from the really cold weather spell.

Tea was soup, lamb chops with vegies.