Sapphires

The largest Sapphire ever found in the world was discovered in Queensland, called the "Black Star" and the variety is called a "star sapphire" as there is a star like design inside it if you shine a light through the middle. John had found in our travel book a small town that was known for it's Sapphire-bearing soil, and there were several sites there where you could go fossicking for Sapphires for a small fee--so that's where we were headed next.

The place we stayed that night was even called Fossickers Caravan Park. The following morning, we were able to buy a bag of sapphire-bearing soil and use the parks tools and fossicking area to see if we could find anything. To fossick first you have to rise off all the dirt off the stones in a big tub of water--and diving them up by size so they are easier to sort through. After that you spread them out on a big burlap cloth situated on top of a drum, and sort through them--holding them up to the light to make sure they are sapphire. I got a video of John going through the process:

We did, indeed, find a few small sapphires from the bag we bought--but John wanted to go actual fossicking. So we headed over to the information center where they directed us to the town of Inverell, about 45 minutes west, where there was a park where you could pay $10 and go fossicking through their soil in hopes of finding something. We arrived at the park to find another older couple there as well as a very rugged looking mid-50s guy, complete with the wide brim outback hat and boots. He was a Kiwi guy, really nice, who showed us the ropes and then proceeded to tell us about all his travel and adventure stories. As he was Kiwi, he was super friendly and he had certainly traveled a lot of places. He had been fossicking at the park for 6 weeks! About a week prior, he had finally hit the jackpot--finding a sapphire that was 20 karats! As sapphires usually sell for $100 per karat, if they are clear and not cloudy, he was holding $2,000 in his hand! He was nice enough to show us the stone before we left--it was indeed quite a large blue rock--an expensive big blue rock. We stayed for about 2 hours and John was able to find a few more smaller stones, as well as some nice yellow and red Zircon as well. No mother load for us, but for John this is not the end of our Australian fossicking adventures, I'm sure. But at least we walked away from the day with a few!