Jun 24

Jun 24 Fossicking in the Gemfields

One thing I learned on this adventure is that digging for precious gems is HARD!

We recently embarked in a Queensland road trip that took us near the Gemfields to Rubyvale, so of course we had to try our luck at getting one of those gorgeous local sapphires.

The Gemfields is made up of three townships – Sapphire, Rubyvale and Anakie. Throughout these towns you will find a range of Gem Shops, Fossicking Parks and Tag-along Tours.

Rubyvale is about a half hour drive from Emerald where we were staying so of course we spent a day digging around in rocks.

Book a stay in Emerald here.

We had all the gear, and I will be honest, probably no idea!

You have the option of joining a tag-along tour where a local will show you what to look for and take you to popular locations. Armed with the skills that a handful of YouTube videos had given us, we decided to head out on our own.

The first stop after getting our fossicking permits online (about $8 each for a month) was of course to fuel up in Rubyvale. We headed to Muggachinno’s Strudel Hut where you can’t help but dive into a delicious homemade strudel that comes with a side of port. For breakfast of course.

As we were travelling with our pup – who of course came fossicking with is – we were happy to find the shaded garden of Muggachinno’s is dog friendly.

Next, it was off to the designated fossicking areas to try our luck in the dry river beds.

It’s hot, dusty work fossicking for sapphires, as I dug deeper to the heavier stones and revealed the cooler ground, our pup Falcor, decided that would be the perfect spot to sit.

We did set up some shade for him and after a little time ‘helping’ us dig, he retreated there to have a nap.

When you think of a precious gem, it is all bright and sparkly so shouldn’t be too hard to spot right? Wrong. To the untrained eye, sapphires in the rough can very easily pass for a bunch of gravel.

Within about half an hour, Aiden discovered a tiny shard of blue sapphire, this was about as exciting as it got for us unfortunately.

We tried three different locations around Rubyvale including Middle Ridge and Graves Hill on the first day and then stopping by Glenalva on our drive west to Longreach.

All that digging definitely worked up an appetite and thankfully, we stopped at The New Royal Hotel Rubyvale for lunch to break up the day.

The pub has a dog-friendly outdoor area where we enjoyed a couple of beers and a giant schnitzel!

In hindsight, we may have had better luck at one of the local fossicking parks. Here you can buy a bag of wash to sift through to find the gems. It is less digging but it does feel a bit less like you earned any gems compared to the hours we spent sitting in the dirt but the chances of walking away with a gem is much higher…