Glen Innes - The Sapphire Hunt

Hi All, As the title suggests we have finally made it to Glen Innes, traveling from Emerald beach through Grafton and up through the mountains. The Car performed very well pulling the van up some steep slopes and the tight turns were not as bad as i thought they might be.

We took off on the First day, Tuesday, and visited the Glen Inness Standing Stones, a monument erected to honour the regions Celtic heritage. We had then planned to visit some local commercial sapphire places, but just our luck they were closed today. A quick visit to the office and we were told the other places available were not much good and that we should try our luck at Wellingrove. so off we went with all the equipment i have to wellingrove. It was here that i caused the first damage for the trip, coming of the edge of a cattle grid. The commadore is not a real off road performer, so it was my fault :) i should be able to fix it up. Anyways, wellingrove was to prove outside of our capabilities as we did not have the correct tools of experience. So it was back to the park and a bag of wash for the girls to sieve through. We did find some small sapphires in the bas, as well as a seeded quartz crystal and some amethyst samples. the kids had fun.

We had planned Wednesday to be on a guided tour. John from the Baptist Church fossicking group runs guided tours every Wednesday, and we did make it along but... I started raining HARD on Tuesday night, and only let up in the morning. This meant most of the "good" sites were inaccessible. We ended up going to swampy creek (i think) and we had great fun both in the creek and in the rain, that started again just as we arrived. The trip out to the fossicking site also marked the second time i caused damage to the car, hitting a raised section of dirt, caused but ruts in the dirt road we were on. Again, the commadore does not have off road clearance ;) anyways, i now have a very annoying rattle coming from under the car that i can not locate at the moment. The car seems to be OK, so we should be good for the trip home.

Upon arrival we were greeted by the paddock guards, a heard of about 30 steer. They were well behaved and i think they though they were to be fed. We left them to guard the cards and when we came back we found some of them inspecting the cars, with their tongues.

Anyways, we did find some sapphire, all very small, and quite a bit of quartz and black tourmaline, but nothing worth cutting. Caitlyn and Sara managed to find some lizards as well, but no snakes.

Thursday, our last day, was a trip out to Stannifer creek where quartz jelly beans and crystals can be found. This area was easy to access so the kids did most of the work, and we did manage to find some nice specimens.

Ill post photos of the finds in another update.

Anyways, that's it for now, we are off to Peak Hill tomorrow, which marks the beginning of our return trip.