October 2009 New England fossicking trip

[jad]

Well, the car is packed and leaving for Nundle tomorrow bright & early followed by Glen Innes on Tuesday afternoon. Safe travelling/fossicking all.

[mehoose]

  Bye bye kiddies. Take care and look out for the other idiots on the road. Have you got some tissues and don't forget to put clean undies on..oh and don't forget the maps!!!!
Keep safe, have a blast and come back with lotsa juicy stories, I mean big stories. 
Merryn 

[Findem]

I know you are all coming up here anyway so most of you will miss this, but the weather looks like being fine and cool for the whole week. We have had one or two showers in the past few days but I think that's it for now. Of course, the nights will be cool but that's what you would all expect anyhow.
See you Wednesday morning
Findem 

[kristylaura2]

  Hello from Barraba!
I have a few gems from wee jasper I want to get cut. Is there anywhere around inverell, tingha or glen innes that can do this for me?

Kristy 

[Wwoofa]

Hi,
One place is the Billabong Blue shop next to the Tourist Info Centre at Inverell.  Also, there's a good cutter in the shop next to the GI Tourist Info Centre.  Either would be excellent.  There are probably others too.
Regards, Paul

[kristylaura2]

  Thankyou Paul 

[andrewb]

Oookay.. so er.. If we rock up at the fossicker's tomorrow evening should we be giving someone a call? I mean what time in the morning were people going out to the emerald mine? Are we doing a convoy? Should I be grabbing someone's number before we get there? etc etc.

[mehoose]

Andrew,
it might be worth ringing the caravan park and leaving a message or your mobile number with the office. This way they could get a message to either Shane (Calx) or Ted, (Fossickeract) and you can find out wots happening that way.

[andrewb]

Andrew,
it might be worth ringing the caravan park and leaving a message or your mobile number with the office. This way they could get a message to either Shane (Calx) or Ted, (Fossickeract) and you can find out wots happening that way.

Good idea, thanks mehoose.

[mehoose]

Your welcome but It'll cost you.
You'll have to give everyone a big squishy hug for me and tell them I miss em 

[andrewb]

Your welcome but It'll cost you.
You'll have to give everyone a big squishy hug for me and tell them I miss em 

I'm not er.. sure they'd appreciate that .. I've rung but I couldn't leave any info for them as I didn't have their last names and Simon didn't know anyone there. I might try hitting up Andrew and Leah if they get near a phone.

[mehoose]

Well you could do recon 
The guy with the pipe is Ted, sidekick one cute pint sized Muddy, running around fetching the .
Calx -Shane - you should hear him a mile off with the banjo, back of the car chockers.
The guy bending over smelling all the roses is Dom - Claude with his lovely Lesley
You could just holler out for all ALFers and listen for the Hey's.

[mehoose]

Hey Andrew, If you catch up with Claude, tell him I hope he has oodles of sparklies for show and tell over coffee. 

[kristylaura2]

Well today was our last day fossicking 
We ran into ted and muddy at the emerald mine, they were the only other fossickers we saw the whole trip! On the way out, we came across a 4wd with 2 flat tyres, the poor buggers! They had been out fossicking. Luckily they had one spare tyre, and our spare fit like a glove, so they hobbled behind us back to Deepwater. If we didn’t come along, they were in for a very very long walk to anywhere! We spent the afternoon chatting away to them and swapped numbers. Always carry a tyre repair kit!!!!!!! 
I found heaps of beryl pieces, 6 of them are beautiful crystals, quite a few chunks of green fluorite and heaps of quartz crystals.  I'll put some photos up when we get home in about a week. Oh, and while Dave went off metal detecting some ruins, I wandered off to speck for rocks, but instead I found an 1867 penny, just sitting on the surface! 
We're going to go see the Emmaville museum tomorrow then we're off to surfers paradise for a week! Good luck everyone and I hope to see pictures soon 

[dom105]

Ok we're officially back home after a very long drive .
Spent three days with Ex-Swede ( an ALFer) before Shane and Jerry happened along on Tuesday. By then we had found jelly beans galore at Stannifer, emerald at Torrington and some extremely small bits of topaz at Blatheram .
Didnt do very well at Billabong Blue , I think Jerry did the best there, but did marginally better at Yarrow Ck on the Wed. By then we had been joined by Mg and Jad who looked to be turning saphire blue by the end of the day. Jerry had a wetsuit and I had waders on and were reasonably warm, but Shane and Jad were only wearing shorts. Jad did recover and look some what normal following a long hot shower.
Joined by Ted and Muddy on Thursday for Pretty Valley where everyone found blue or green and yellow. We all however put in a huge day and nobody was looking too fresh at the end of it. Lesley hoped all that mud was good for her complexion , she even slipped over and sat in it for a while.
Soccermom dropped in for a while Thursday night to say hi and the only other ALFer who made contact with us was Team Grace to say hi and tell us he was staying and fossicking at a friends place.
Unfortunately we had to leave early and would have liked to have met Andrew and Leah for Sat night Chinese, but it wasnt to be, we did however meet Leah's dad. At least we got to meet nine other ALFers that I had never met before. Look forward to the next trip.
Claude