October 2009 New England fossicking trip

[andrewb]

!!!! We only just arrived this very second, you can't leave yet!

Any tips at the emerald mine? Did you leave us any? Was there any water to wet sieve there? Did calx get a go of the mechanical pulsator at 7 oaks?

[dom105]

Sorry to miss you, but we are flying to Tassie tomorrow. All the ALFers left will be glad to see you. Some are staying at cabins 6&8 (I think) at the Fossickers C/Van Pk.
We spent about half a day at the emerald mine and as far as I can tell, you may be able to find something by splitting open one of the many quartz rocks around the site. The only water that I could see was in the fenced off area, which is 'out of bounds'. If you look over the ground closely you may find something, although three of us gave it a pretty good going over. By the way wear gloves and some glasses when you attack those rocks or you may come away with some major cuts like I did .
I'm not sure what calx played with the other day, or if indeed he did go to 7 Oaks, but that could explain the smile he had when he got back to the C/Van Pk .
Claude

[Findem]

Hi AlFers - we are off to Rainy Swamp for sapphires etc this morning - leaving the Baptist Church at 9 am. Hope to meet up with some more of you this morning or tonight.
Findem

[dom105]

Hey Michael
Youre into dogtooths arent you?
Lesley found about eight blue-green ones by just digging a tiny hole with her little shovel. Put my finds to shame, thats for sure.
Actually you wait till you see the 500+ ct jellybean that came out of her hole at Stannifer (again digging a little hole, with her little shovel, whilst in the shade under a coolibah tree). I couldnt measure the exact weight as my scales only go to 500ct's.
Claude

[mehoose]

Hey Claude, you could always take it to the supermarket and stick that whopper on their scales. Then multiply the grams x 5 and there's the carats 
Sounds like Lesley's the lucky charm, which means I might get to see some good sparklies, Wooohooo 

KLKL, sounds like some pretty pics coming too.
This is exciting, It's going so fast.

Well have a great dinner 2night everyone, don't get hangovers, and keep em comin!!!! 

[Exswede]

Hey Guys,
I guess this is my 'first post' here, after I have been lurking in the dark, or was that in the mud... for a while. So my first official ALF "Hi..."

I just wanted to say thanks for you guys organising this min-Minerama and thanks to Claude for alerting me to the fact, I had a few great days before I had to leave to get back to the rat-race at work.

Anyways, hope to see you all soon again, and take care and be safe out there

Anders

[mehoose]

Hey,
Welcome Anders  Hopefully first post of many 

[jad]

Well this was a great trip. Thanks to those who shed some experience and knowledge.
Spent my first night at Nundle on the way up. Worked like a trooper in painfull clay only to produce a few zircons.
For me Yarrow Creek was unproductive and just plain cold (Took a while to thaw out!) - Only found a couple of zircons and garnet fragments.
Pretty Valley was a good day. Found a good amount of tiny sapphires and zircons. No real cutters though, but better then fragments. Some pieces were little dog tooth crystals including blue, green and blue-green ones.
Stannifer was great for the 'Jelly Bean Crystals'. Found a nice piece of citrine which I plan to have cut. A good amount of smokey also.
My attempted trip to Torrington failed due a crook back from a dodgy camping matress - I shall return...
I dropped into the fossicking ground near Uralla on the way home - found a couple of tiny garnets.
Other intersting things that I found in my sieve included a baby yabby, two scorpians, fragments of glass and a few deceptive bright red worms....
 
JAD

[andrewb]

I heard Tingha was closed on Sunday??

[TG]

We arrived on Saturday afternoon and made ourselves at home, before driving to the creek and meeting the senior members of Team Grace who had already set up camp. After a catch up, we went back to base for dinner. Next morning, bright and early, we hit the sapphires. Wednesday we went out with John. We didn't turn many sieves, just enjoyed the scenery, as more a break from sapphiring. Thursday we went exploring. It was another relaxing day, driving around and good to be on holidays. We then hit the sapphires again. Tuesday came round and we went into town to get supplies and it was a pleasure to meet Dom, Jerry, Jad and Calx, who really doesn't look like his picture at all, even with it being afternoon light. The following days involved spraying blackberries, feral animal control and more sapphiring, only to turn around and leave Saturday morning. Got home and tried to weigh my pretties for the picture id taken, only to have my small scales over loaded at 100g, so went to the bigger ones, with 50g increments and got about 200g sapphire and 1kg black spinel. Planning on making the boss and a friend a bracelet of Spinel.
In the second week while doing some jobs there we had the most unfortunate experience. I was stepping backwards when I stepped onto a brown snake. This put me in a difficult position and I had to end its life. This is where I award an honorary Darwin award to my dog, as a day later, smelling nicely no doubt, the dog ate it. He got really, really sick, but is OK now.

[Wwoofa]

Hi Team Grace,
Where did you go sapphiring?  200g is very impressive for a couple of days
Regards, Paul 

[TG]

Rust, that's 2 weeks condensed into one post and at the moment I'm not up to divulging secret spot 72. Only got two secret spots left,  1 and 72.

[mehoose]

andrewb,
Tingha doesn't operate the equipment on Sundays. You've gotta dig.
I rang them for BamBam to let them know a group was coming over cos he couldn't get through. It was organised for the Sunday, just not before 8 am.
Geez, I hope someone turned up? Or if not , gave them a call for the change of plans. That would be a bummer for organising down the track if neither eventuated.

[Findem]

Hi all
Here are my pics from Rainy Swamp last Saturday.
I picked out all the gem material for the day when I got back - 43.8 grams of zircon and 27.1 grams of sapphire, not including the two larger stones in the first pic, which are from a different hole and are actually amongst the best I've found at this place. They are both basically yellow.
Have a great day.
Findem

[andrewb]

andrewb,
Tingha doesn't operate the equipment on Sundays. You've gotta dig.
I rang them for BamBam to let them know a group was coming over cos he couldn't get through. It was organised for the Sunday, just not before 8 am.
Geez, I hope someone turned up? Or if not , gave them a call for the change of plans. That would be a bummer for organising down the track if neither eventuated.

I was at Billabong Blue on Sunday and an ALFer turned up around 1pm and said they went to Tingha as per the plan but the gates were locked.