Austalian Sapphires

Our mine is close to the town called Sapphire. A small town with a few scattered stores. The strangest most enthralling place I have ever lived in. Further up the road is the township of Rubyvale.

What a place
The majestic gum trees in soft pastels,
the black ironbark trees.
Long grass in every shade of cream and pink. Then a glimpse of a miners hut in the distance,
beside which has the obligatory mound of colourful gravel and dirt.

Dirt that has been dug often by hand, pick and shovel,
then sieved and washed,
to be upended on a sack balancing
precariously atop a 44 gallon drum.

Often to reveal a large shining gemstone
winking at you,
previously buried from when the land was nothing as we know it now.

To pick that gemstone up and hold it, the first person to ever see it. How could something so beautiful be lying there in the ground and no one knew it was there.

The land is mostly all open country, there for fossickers to dig a hole and search for gem quality stones.
It is not the lifestyle for everyone, you have to love finding gemstones.

Enough so to laugh in the face of the elements.

Enough so as to not wonder why nature gave your neighbouring digger a gorgeous large clear blue sapphire after only a few hours scratching around, while you are clutching a few broken chips and a cracked star, after digging a crater the size of a small country.

The Central Highland Gemfields
located in the heart of
Queensland,
Australia