Fossicking

Richard has found his calling. He has the eagle eye for spotting sapphires. Fossicking is a lot of hard work and a lot of fun. We've been to a couple of different fossicking parks, both ones that are run by people and get their pile of rocks from the mines, and the type on the side of the road where you dig up your own pile of rocks from the stream. The former is much more profitable, even though you pay $10-20 for the day.

First, fill a bucket from the pile and either spin the silt off and then wash or go directly to washing.


Next, wash the two sieves. The top sieve is for the big stuff (the stuff which will pay for our trip!) and the bottom is finer, for the little stuff. Di is really good at washing. Shaking it in the right way is important so the sparkly bits end up in the middle and on top when the sieve is flipped.


Finally, pick out the sparkly bits. Richard has the eye for this!


Here's what we've found in a couple of days of fossicking. The blues are sapphires or corundrum. The reds, ambers, and clears are zircon. The large rock is a 1cm per side sapphire. We're going to either get it polished or cut.

Anonymous posting enabled

I've made it so that you don't have to have a Blogger id to be able to write us a comment. (thanks, Dave) Let me know if it's not working and I'll try to fix it!!! I'm gradually getting to know the idiosyncracies of this thing...

No pictures this time. We left the farm this morning and are off to who knows where. Probably hunting thundereggs (look it up) a bit further north and then off to Carnarvon Gorge NP and a look at some aboriginal wall art.

Connor has just announced to the entire (very quiet) Armidale library that he hates getting changed. So it must be time to go.

Shearing

We were very fortunate to time our trip over the shearing weekend. Two men shear while one throws the fresh wool over the table, one grades the wool, and another skirts the wool (takes the dirty bits off the outside). The wool is sold to Italian woolen mills and probably ends up in mens suits. They work for 2 hour stretches, with a half hour smoke-o in the morning and afternoon (although nobody seems to smoke), and an hour for lunch.

Shearing the sheep


All this from one animal!


The animals are slid down the chute after they are done.


Mid-morning on the second of three days.

Life on the Farm

We're in a three bedroom cottage. It's heated by a wood stove in the living room, so it gets pretty cold at night unless Rich wakes up to put another log or two on! The temperatures have been below freezing most nights, with mostly sunny days in the high teens. 15C is about 60F, which seems to be the high most days. We seem to get up with the sun and go to bed a few hours after it goes down.



The kids love going around with Mike to feed the animals each morning.


There are highland cattle, black angus beef cattle, lots of merino sheep, 2 other sheep like the kind in the movie Babe, 5 sheep dogs, including a Rhodesian ridgeback, and 5 shetland ponies.

The boys saw a baby angus calf being born last week. Each day there are new calves, both the angus and the highland cattle. Many of the sheep are pregnant, but they won't have their babies until October.

New baby highland calf, 2 days old


The dogs are showing off


Farmer Richard feeds the cows

The Blue Mountains

After Victoria, we took a day to drive to the western edge of the Blue Mountains. We crossed them at Katoomba, site of the Three Sisters. According to legend, three girls were turned to stone by a helpful shaman while escaping an evildoer. The shaman's wand was broken and he was unable to turn them back to humans. So there they sit, waiting.


Sunset at Hasams Walls, near the second largest uplift subsidence (or subsided uplift?) in the world. The first is the Grand Canyon.


View of the Three Sisters from Echo Point. We couldn't get an echo from here.


But we did get a great echo from the Prince of Wales lookout along the rim trail.



This railway was a thrill ride! Here's Andrew in what they used to use to descend the cliff face.




Pretty scenery along the walk. The first is a picture of Katoomba Falls from near the miner's camp. Thar's coal in them thar hills.



A railway, a flyway, and a skyway took us from cliff point to cliff point, with some boardwalk trails in between. These pictures are from the skyway, the last is Katoomba Falls. You can tell they've had a long drought.

Another walk, this time down a long staircase, to another beautiful falls.

The birds in the foreground are sulfur-crested cockatoos.

Unbelievably beautiful views

Andrew on the edge of the world

A thousand steps to the top

The Great Ocean Road

Lots of gorgeous, heart-stopping sights along this road. It was very difficult deciding which pictures to publish here, since there are so many good ones. We spent three days on the Road, a distance of about 400 km (maybe).


View from one of the first stops at a lighthouse. There are many old shipwreck memorials near the lighthouses on the Road, also many settler graves and artefact museums.




Our family at the official beginning of the Road. There's a geocache hidden somewhere nearby -- our first find in Aussie.


Upper falls on the way to another cache. This one took us hours to find, as it was a 2-cache series and we took wrong starts to both of them! This creek eventually empties into the ocean.

Otway Fly

The people at one of our motels recommended the Otway Fly Treetop Walk. The kids loved it (we did too). If you've ever played the computer game Myst, it was a lot like that. Walkways in trees, very high off the ground. If you're at all scared of heights, don't come here. The tea, coffee, and biscuits (cookies) after the walk were quite reviving! It was very cold the morning we visited, and began raining hard after we left. We timed it just right.


View from one ramp to another.


The tower. We climbed it.


Here's the proof. By the way, the best way to keep warm is layers. We're all wearing three.


Tree ferns.


The ground is far below our feet.


Safe on the ground again.

12 Apostles and other formations

A long, long time ago, the coastline extended out farther than it does now. Softer rock washed away, leaving formations. The most famous is called the 12 Apostles. Another is London Bridge, which used to be a landbridge, but fell down in 1990, with some tourists out on the ocean side. They were rescued by helicopter.

The weather here was cold and rainy with occasional sleet. Luckily, the roads were not icy.




The seas were very rough, and I have lots of pictures of large waves.


Another landbridge arch.


This picture captures the feel of the day -- cold, windy, rainy, but beautiful.

Wilson's Promontory

This is the southmosterly point of our journey. There's a large national park here, with beautiful scenery and birds and a beach.

The Southern Ocean


Connor and Andrew in the Southern Ocean. The waves come straight from Antartica.


Sunset on the Prom

Andrew and Connor See Australia

Pictures

I'm in an internet cafe somewhere in south Vic. Here are some pictures so far...


Royal National Park outside Sydney.




The view from Fitzroy Falls. I can't seem to upload the picture of the falls themselves, but trust me, they are beautiful.



Random termite mound on the road to Pebbly Beach. There were supposed to be friendly kangaroos on the beach, but we didn't see any. We did see some near the caretaker's house on the way out.




Rich and the boys at Mystery Bay. Check out the cave. We would have, but it started to pour with rain just after I took the picture.