Monday 29th June - Rubyvale

Monday 29^th June 

On Monday we went on a tag-along-tour for looking for sapphires. On the tag-along-tour we got to have someone else's wash because it was abandoned in its bucket at the willoughbys and the tour guide said he wanted his bucket back.

This is Dad digging.

This is me separating the wash from the dust and the big rocks.

This is me using the willoughby.

This is me tipping the rubbish rocks away.  

This is us going fossicking with the funny cat again. 

Mum's note:
On the tag-along-tour we found out where the sapphires are in the soil strata (the wash) and how to separate them from the surrounding rock using tumblers and willoughbies. The tumblers separate out all the big rocks and the soil from the size rocks that are likely to include sapphires of worth. The willoughbies are for washing the tumbled rocks and for getting some separation based on density (sapphires are heavy for their size). Isabel has a detailed description of the willoughbies to post tomorrow.

Caleb turning the handle on the tumbler while Dad feeds in wash.

Caleb helping Dad put wash through the willoughby.

We did find one nice size sapphire - a green one. The piece we found has bronzing on one side, making it a star sapphire. It will be difficult to cut to great effect though, as the bronzing is on one of the smaller faces, so for now it will stay rough. 

The colour was too hard to capture, but you can see this rock is letting the light through.
It is a green sapphire - not what we would think of as a sapphire, but apparently very popular in China. 

The bronzing on one edge of our sapphire.

It was hard to make the kids feel that they'd found much in the way of gems today, as the wash was real rather than spiked, so we headed back to MaxiGems for another couple of buckets of tourist wash to finish off the day.
Back at the caravan park we spotted this little guy on the stump outside our van.

Very serene little tree frog.