Stratford fossicking trip

Poor Bianca :)



We went out today with the Essendon Lapidary Club on a field trip to the Stratford area. Members from the McMillan rock hounds had offered to show us around.

The Avon River

For this trip, Thunder Eggs and Lava flow tuft were what we were looking for and we managed to find both.

For Bianca and I, the day started at 5am with a 3hr drive to meet up with the other members staying at the Stratford caravan park. Once meeting up we headed off in a 6 car convoy to the Thunder egg site. The site was very overgrown due to previous control burns and we were required to hack our way through the undergrowth a few hundred meters into the fossicking site. It seems that although thunder eggs can be found at various locations, this was one of the easier to get to with eggs that would yield some content.

As per the last field trip it seemed best to share the load and work a singe dig site. Chris and I dug whilst Bianca sorted the eggs out and filled the bucket. The fossicking was quite easy once we had located a "nest" and the biggest issue we faced, other than spiders, bull ants and centipede's, was carrying our haul out :)

The thunder eggs....

Once back at the car we all had lunch before heading out to a cutting that contained the lava flow tufts, apparently a sedimentary form of compressed lava that is suitable for cabbing. We managed to find some nice green tinted pieces.

Lava Flow Tuft

It was after this that most of the group decided to head back to the park, with Bianca and I heading home again



Thankyou to the McMillan Rockhounds for ahowing us around, It was a long day but well worth it. All that is left now is to open the eggs and see what we found.

Posted with Blogsy

Updates and Port Fairy planning

Its been a long time between posts but as its winter we have not been taking the van out, rather we have been doing some great day trips out of Melbourne, on the days where the weather is mild.

With Spring here and Summer on its way we have a few outings planned to get us warmed up for the Christmas Trip.

Updates
Firstly, i have made some updates to the Fuel economy page for the Colorado, and i have updated the Colorado page with updated information on the Warranty issues we have been having, and some photos of the recent upgrades.

Trips

We have a few longer day trips planned, mostly with the Essendon Gem & Lapidary Club. The first, in late October, will be to Powelltown, were we expect to be able to fossick for Quartz and Topaz. As Powelltown is close to Melbourne we will be treating this as a day trip.

The second Fossicking trip we have planned for the last part of the year is to Stratford, which although further afield, we will also still treat as a day trip. It will be a LONG day though so we are keeping our options open :) I am not to sure what we expect to find here but there is a 4WD day planned into the hills so it should be a lot of fun.

Lastly we have booked a weekend away for Melbourne Cup weekend. For the 4 days of the long weekend we are booked into the Belfast Cove Holiday Park in Port Fairy. The park receives very good ratings on the Badgers review site and we are looking forward to getting away in the van.