The Search for Riches

 We left the comfort of Duaringa Station with plans to head to Canavon Gorge but after realising we were on the wrong side and it would take 7 hours to get there it was time for a change. Go further west to find our fortune. As we headed through the land of coal we took a quick stop at Blackwater International Coal Centre. This was a good place to stop and have a break and very interesting. Kids even managed to drive a train (or at least pretend)

It is amazing how big some of the machines are that they use to get this black stuff out of the ground.

Heading further up the road we settled for the night at Emerald, quiet one as we had to focus the next few days in the gem fields.

Slow start as it was only about 60kms to Sapphire so we took a quick detour to Fairbairn Dam, this was built for agriculture but at the moment is only about 15% full.

On we went to the gem fields, after driving around for a while we managed to settle on the Blue Sapphire Caravan Park, good little setup and as most place do, it had bags of wash you can fossick through. As the day was getting away we decided this is best to be done in the morning when the sun is up and bright.

We woke to the noise of flock of feathery friends that had taken up residence on to of the camper, kids had heaps of fund feeding them for about 45 mins.

After we had run out of bread and the guest on their way it was off to find the gems we sort. A little lesson from the park owner and we were away. Everyone managed to find a few nice pieces, value yet to be determined, good fun though.

With a bag (small) of gems we headed up the road to Rubyvale to do an underground mine tour, second one for the trip. Very interesting and well worth it. 

The kids (mainly Charlie) would really have like to do a bag of wash here too but time did not permit.

The plan was to head further west and stay at Barcaldine but the freestay was not open so further we headed towards Longreach, Ilfracombe was an option but pass......Longreach it was then.

Updates:

EEC: On the drive from Barcaldine to Longreach we managed to spot the first sign of big chooks, 6 in total for the drive. EEC stands at 53.

CCC: None here in the bush,  CCC stands at 6.