Tales and Treasures of the Australian Outback

This week we’re continuing our Road to Riches road trip, heading east to the Sapphire Gemfields of Central Queensland.

We camp overnight in a little forgotten Outback town, famous for its incredible petrified wood forests, before pushing on to Rubyvale in the heart of the Sapphire Gemfields. 

We enjoy a great couple of days hunting for gemstones, meeting the locals and exploring the region, camping up at the Gem Seekers Caravan Park right in town. We stop in to the Rubyvale Gem Gallery to catch up with our good friends, the Brown family, and enjoy a meal or two at the Rubyvale Pub.

 If you love a good treasure hunt, you’ll love a visit to this quirky region of Central Australia!

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Transcript

Exploring Forgotten Outback Towns in Australia

Speaker 1 0:00

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Speaker 2 0:23

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Speaker 1 0:33

Welcome to Season 9, episode 8 of the Family Travel Australia podcast. We are Paul, katie and Jasper from the Feel Good Family. Join us as we explore this great country, australia, its people, places and cultures.

Speaker 2 0:55

Yes, welcome to the Family Travel Podcast, where we share the latest in RV industry news road trip travel, caravanning and camping, product reviews, way to go, what to do and so much more. Thanks for joining us this week.

Speaker 1 1:09

Katie, we have to leave the hot springs. We're heading to the Sapphire Gemfield with an overnight in a forgotten outback town.

Speaker 2 1:19

Oh yes. And aren't there so many of these little forgotten outback towns, paul? Oh yes, and aren't there so many of these little forgotten outback towns, paul and gosh? We love discovering these little places because, you know, while they may be forgotten to the majority of the world, there are still people here. There's people that live here, people that work here and often rich in stories.

Speaker 1 1:40

Yes, people make the place and they certainly do have some good stories out. Here we are at Alpha Now, leaving Lara Wetlands.

Speaker 2 1:54

we obviously headed through Barkie stopped at the bakery yummo, oh yeah, and the IGA.

Speaker 1 1:56

Yes, a very good shopping stop. It is the IGA. And, of course, the Tree of Knowledge, as we mentioned last episode. It 183 kilometers journey, so a medium drive day for the feel goods. And look, we're on what would be the end of the tourist season and pulling into alpha caravan park.

Speaker 1 2:17

we're the only ones there now this is a very unusual occurrence for us and they said they have had a fairly busy season. It really is a tourist transit location and there just isn't a lot going on. I mean, the town was established there back in 1863 as the, I guess, temporary terminus during the construction of the Central Western Rail Line, so it was the end of the line. They had established it after Major Mitchell the explorer had really just passed through briefly and said, oh, this would be a good settlement. So there you go. So they did have a settlement here and throughout time, from, you know, 1863 onwards there, that population has really been three, four hundreds, peaked at about its current now, which is just shy of 600 people from the last census out there.

Speaker 1 3:26

Right of having, you know, the opportunity to grow economic benefits, but had a lot of issues there with different people, particularly the Greenies, saying no, no, no, we've got some endangered species of birds and things here that you're going to ruin. So there was impact studies done anyway. So the town has had this sort of interrupted history and then the real fame from a tourist point of view came about because they have petrified wood. They had these ancient forests here that all end up petrified, and so tourists were coming through and fossicking for petrified wood.

Speaker 2 4:01

Yeah, look, we could definitely notice a difference, couldn't we, paul? We pulled through Alpha quite a number of years ago and whilst it was still a small outback town with not a lot of people, there was still Activity. Activity, that's right, and particularly on the main street. It's a sweet little main street of Alpha and there is this great little visitor information centre.

Speaker 1 4:27

It's a one street, one horse kind of thing. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 4:31

Yes, yes, that's right, and the Vic was fantastic. When we pulled through a couple of years ago. It was open. It's got this real old train station ticket office vibe about it, that's what it?

Speaker 2 4:45

is yeah, well, that's probably why it's got that kind of vibe. There you go, and then this sweet little garden out the back with all of this petrified wood, and the lovely lady that we spoke to a few years ago, who was manning the Vic, took all the time in the world with us to explain to Jasper, who was much littler than all, about the petrified wood, and we even got to have a little bit of a fossick in the garden out the back of the Vic. Sadly, this time when we came through town, the Vic was all closed up. Now we don't know whether that was just, you know, on the days that we were in town this time or whether it is actually closed at the time, but if you are coming through Alpha, we would definitely recommend trying to stop in there at the Vic, as Paul mentioned, it was very, very quiet this time and pulling into the caravan park we sort of looked at each other like is it open.

Speaker 2 5:41

Yeah, should we stop here? Keep going? What do we do?

Speaker 1 5:48

I think, because the sprinklers were all out on the lawns and it looked very well maintained. It's a very old caravan park.

Speaker 2 5:56

It's actually a really pretty place to camp.

Speaker 1 5:59

Really pretty place to camp. Yes, because the grass is green, the trees are everything's well manicured a camp. Yes, because the grass is green, the trees are everything's well manicured. And even though the facilities like the camp kitchen and the amenities are old, they're immaculate. Yes yes, well painted, you know, it's really well managed.

Speaker 2 6:17

Yes, yes it is. Last time we came through, there was great managers who were looking after the property. This time, a new set of great managers who were looking after the property. This time, a new set of great managers who were looking after the property. He was very, very happy to see us roll in, obviously, and park up for the night. And, look to be fair, a number of other travellers came in later in that afternoon and so there would have been oh gosh, I don't know maybe three or four of us camping overnight.

Speaker 1 6:45

Yes, there was, and while-.

Speaker 2 6:47

We started a trend, Al.

Speaker 1 6:49

My trend center is looking out the feel goods. While Liam the manager, I did meet his wife I didn't catch her name, though they were very welcoming, as you said, katie and said look, if you haven't got plans, you should head up to the golf club for some dinner. They do counter meals up there, and so sure enough we did. We headed up there, and other than a handful of locals, we were it.

Speaker 2 7:15

Yes. There's a nice little walk from the caravan park too, which I loved.

Speaker 1 7:19

Yeah, look, it's uphill and probably one and a half kilometres up the road, and so the good thing about going uphill is that, coming back from a pub or a golf club, you know it's all downhill from there, babe.

Speaker 2 7:34

Yeah, exactly when you fall.

Speaker 1 7:36

Exactly. I'm always nervous when I rock into a venue like this and there's a specials board. I generally don't go near the specials, just in case they kind of you know, push the.

Speaker 2 7:48

Leftovers. Is that what you're trying to say, Doug? Yeah.

Speaker 1 7:52

Get rid of the cod, you know, get rid of the venison. It's running out of date. So, yeah, so, but look, there was homemade kind of vibe, like that sort of really hearty vegetables, you know, and with the creamy sauce over it. And that was really good. We enjoyed that, had a sneaky beverage and then we made our way back down Silent night.

Speaker 2 8:18

Yeah, so quiet yeah.

Speaker 1 8:19

Because when there's no one around, you know you're it.

Speaker 2 8:23

Yeah, yeah that's so right. And where we are, we've sort of, once you get to Buckhold and you sort of come off what they refer to as the Outback Way, and now we're technically on the Capricorn Highway. So we're at the start or the end, I suppose, depending on which way you go of the Capricorn Highway, which basically runs horizontal and follows the line of the Tropic of Capricorn all the way towards the east coast of Australia to Yipoon. So we're with-.

Speaker 1 8:58

The Great Barrier Reef, Katie.

Speaker 2 9:00

Yes, the southern Great Barrier Reef, the gateway to the reef, and it's not the okay Great Barrier Reef Del. No, it's the Great Barrier Reef.

Speaker 1 9:06

The gateway to the reef and it's not the okay Great Barrier Reef Del. It is great.

Speaker 2 9:09

And we look. Let me tell you we are excited and I think this is a real turning point for us in this journey because we've had all of that time Amazing you know six months in the Northern Territory heading up to Darwin, there, spending time up there in the Top End just incredible country and then coming back down to Gemtree to start this epic road to riches road trip from, you know, gemtree in the Northern Territory across the Plenty Highway into outback Queensland, some of the country's most incredible outback region, and now we've hit this turning point of the Capricorn Highway. I can almost smell the sea air Del. We are closer to a beach that we can actually swim at than we have been all year.

Discovering Gemfields in Outback Queensland

Speaker 1 10:05

True, and you're so spot on. It's like all of a sudden you know that 500 kilometres to the coast ain't a big deal. You know because we're doing that sometimes in a day. Yes, and really the location of Alpha is roughly 400 kilometres west of Rocky. Okay, so it really is that close. We're going to take a few days to get there. In fact, we were meant to go to Carnarvon Gorge, one of our all-time favourite national parks as a family.

Speaker 1 10:37

It was our first real epic adventure out there without the safety net of our family and friends, and so it will always remain probably at the top of our list as far as a hiking experience in a remote part of Australia that is just breathtakingly beautiful. Well, there's a large fire there, so they evacuated all the tourists Might have mentioned this in the last podcast, actually. And then we thought, well, we'll go to Black Down Tablelands, Rainbow Falls another stunningly beautiful location and the falls there and the natural water holes and swimming pools Wow, it's also closed and we saw that fire. I mean it's massive.

Speaker 2 11:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1 11:20

So they've evacuated everyone from there. Yeah, so we're like, eh Change plans. Yeah, so we're like, eh, change of plans.

Speaker 1 11:24

Yeah, not to worry, still plenty to do here. So Alpha became, you know, one of our overnight stops, which otherwise it would not have been. And really, if you're heading west, out to Winton or beyond, or coming back, and you're wanting to get straight to the coast, you're going to pass through Alpha, yep, yep. Now, before we leave Alpha, just a little bit on the Petrified Wood, because there were public fossicking areas that you could go and fossick for the Petrified Wood many years ago, and unfortunately the local council, it's now part of the wider Barkholden region. Actually They've amalgamated a lot of these little towns under the umbrella of Barkie.

Speaker 1 12:07

They had to close down because of really poor behavior from tourists that were coming through, just dumping their rubbish, dumping their toilet waste, which is, you know, the worst really of the behavior of some people out there. You know, I think, bring back public floggings, katie, string them up Publicly, shame them and, you know, give them a good whipping, a little cat-o'-nine-tails or something. Wow, yeah, I'm all in on this. It's terrible. You know, I do understand sometimes you've got to go and whatever, but there's ways of doing these things, I guess. But you know, I do understand sometimes you've got to go and whatever, but there's ways of doing these things, I guess. But you know, this unfortunately ruined it for everyone.

Speaker 2 12:50

Yeah, look, and we hate to say it, but we have seen this version of things in a number of places as we've travelled around the country, where, you know, these iconic spots that are open to travellers do get closed down because people don't look after them, and it always leaves us scratching our heads, you know, because you're out here to explore the country, to see these places and really, you know, immerse yourself in the nature and then to not look after it, and we see this when we're on the beach, we see it when we're, you know, in the outback. It really does make you wonder why, but anyway, that is the case. They have closed down the public fossicking areas, which is a real shame because petrified wood is so cool it really is.

Speaker 1 13:42

And fortunately for little J-Man, little Jasperini, when we were packing up and just trying to get a little bit of local knowledge inside into. Well, can you just give us a little bit of a point us in the right direction so we could go on Fossick for some of this. Is there somewhere that we could access legally to look for the petrified wood? And Woll's wife I'm sorry, I don't remember her name said to Jasper, here, here's some. And she gave him this little piece of petrified wood and she did point us in the right direction. But where it was with the van in tow, we couldn't, kind of you know, 100% guarantee that it was accessible. It's a little bit of a four-wheel drive dirt track or out over beyond the sports oval. There you go, there's a tip, but yeah, I'd go and see these guys. Wal didn't really know he goes. I don't know, mate, people go out, find it.

Speaker 1 14:38

Uh, whereas his wife actually said no, no, you've got to go to this road and take a left over the hill and you'll find it, and so that was really generous and so we did have a little piece there, beautiful piece of petrified wood. Interestingly, I didn't know this about petrified wood, but it's formed underground. Well, I knew that bit. Right, okay, and it's really a type of fossil and what happens is, as the old forestry you know, falls and is laying there and then over time it's filled over with sediments and the dead plant matter and its cells are actually replaced by minerals, silicate and a few other things primarily, and it fossilizes into a rock.

Speaker 2 15:23

Amazing.

Speaker 1 15:24

With the same textures of its original form.

Speaker 2 15:27

It is so beautiful.

Speaker 1 15:29

It's really beautiful, You're right. So it's a bummer that they had to close the public Fosken area. I think if they could resurrect that, they could have a really huge economic spinoff.

Speaker 2 15:44

Yeah, and from our point of view they definitely need it. They need the tourists coming through and staying and playing a little bit longer to help support the town and the people that live here. This whole region is incredible, paul, like the further that we're going to start to travel along this Capricorn Highway towards the east coast of Queensland. Out here, you know this once upon a time, a million squillion years ago, used to be sea. So as we get further and further towards Rockhampton, you know the fossil life out here and in particular the marine fossil life is mind-blowing, particularly, you know, in this day and age when you're driving and you know there's no ocean to be seen.

Speaker 1 16:31

Yeah, look, 130 million years ago, give or take a couple there was the large inland sea of Australia, the Aramanga Sea, which basically is the footprint of where the Great Artesian Basin is now.

Speaker 2 16:46

Very interesting Very interesting.

Speaker 1 16:48

So yeah, I mean epic sea creatures and, of course, the most most famous, the king of all dinosaurs and king of underwater dinosaurs, is the cronosaurus queenslandicus oh yes, and you can actually come face to face with that guy out there on that awesome dinosaur triangle in outback Queensland.

Speaker 1 17:11

Yeah now, amazing locations out here to come and visit and play and stay. Now, Alpha to Sapphire Gemfields we're actually going to. Rubyvale is 142 kilometres. Again, a pretty small to medium sort of drive day. We're going to be staying at the Gemseekers Caravan Park first for the field goods.

Speaker 2 17:33

Yes, actually it's quite surprising out here in the Gem Fields how many places there are on offer for tourists to stay at. So as you are turning off the Capricorn Highway and heading into the Gem Fields of Sapphire and Rubyvale, you have Anarchy Gem Fields there. There's a great little caravan park there, I guess right on the intersection of the highway. That gets rave reviews.

Speaker 1 17:58

Always reminds me of Luke Skywalker.

Speaker 2 18:01

Yeah, exactly A real bummer for us, though, was the Anarchy Hotel, the pub, which has a fantastic history and a story that we were eager to go and check out, but it has been closed down for some time now, which is a real shame. But anyway, we didn't stay there. We continued on to Rebouval, as Paul said, but you drive through the little township of Sapphire, which also has a number of different caravan parks to stay at, different caravan parks to stay at, and look, we've run into a heap of travellers who have been staying at all of these various places, who all said to us oh, this was fantastic, this was a great place to stay. We really loved it here.

Speaker 2 18:41

So I don't think you can go too much wrong out here in these parts. I will asterisk that by saying, though, you are still in the middle of an environment that is dirty and dusty and not a lot of trees and not a lot of water, so don't come out to these parts expecting that you are going to find this incredible facility with amazing amenities and brand new and lush green grass. You're just not going to find that out here, so don't be disappointed when you, you know you do stay somewhere and the amenities might be really old, but hey, at least they're clean. Or the sites might be small, but hey, at least you've got power and water. Yes, correct.

Speaker 1 19:24

We're reminded of our first visit here where we went whoa, what a junkyard, yes, and then you know you cannot judge a book by its cover. It's the same out there in Cooper Peaty. If you drove into that town and your first impression was your lasting impression, you'd keep driving, correct, it looks like no one cares. You know, and a lot of this is because, well, certainly here in Rue Vale and Sapphire and these sort of surrounding gem fields is that a lot of it is 100 by 100 metre claim sites that aren't allowed to have any permanent dwellings. So you have all of this makeshift. You know, certainly not. You know council approved buildings because they're just banged together with a few screws the tin shed lean too.

Speaker 2 20:20

that sort of covers the old caravan that's seen better days, that attaches to another kind of sheddy construction. You know it's all a bit, you know it makes you sort of think oh God, what are we doing?

Speaker 1 20:34

out here. She'll be right, mate, just bang that up there, let's get underground, get digging. Yeah, don't need to worry about what's up here, we need to get down there. And then, when stuff breaks down, it's left, but not because it's left to be forgotten, it's because, well, now, that's my local Bunnings. Everything that is left is a spare part for a future breakdown on something else that I've got to go on now, jimmy up.

Exploring Rubyvale Gemfields and Outback Bunnings

Speaker 2 20:55

Yeah, absolutely hey. Remember when we were out in corner country of New South Wales, we did the Sturt Steps drive journey from Broken Hill all the way well, we actually went all the way up to Cameron Corner there where the three states of Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales meet, but we were in Tibberborough and this is the best version of the Outback Bunnings that we have seen, because they literally had a huge area with a big sign that said the Outback Bunnings that you could drive into and it's a bit like driving to the tip. But what they did out here, which was so fantastic, is okay. Over here on the right they had a whole area that was well-signed, white goods, right, and then you drive a little bit more and then there's a whole area that's like lawnmowers or anything, Furniture. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 21:48

Wood tin, yes, scrap metal.

Speaker 2 21:51

So you could go and drop your stuff off, but you could also do a little bit of, you know, free shopping while you're there to pick up your spare parts.

Speaker 1 21:58

Well, the town had, I think, realised that, you know, unfortunately. But people do judge a book by its cover, and so let's at least categorise everything into some sort of structured, you know, organised, chaos. Gee, it worked really well out there.

Speaker 2 22:17

Yeah, it did. And you know the reason. We were out there. We don't just, you know, like to go driving around the old tip wherever we go, but they had what they called a dump point at the very back of that Outback Bunnings and at that stage we were running our cassette toilet. So we did have to go to the Outback Bunnings and at that stage we were running our cassette toilet, so we did have to go to the Outback Bunnings to dump our loo.

Speaker 1 22:39

Which was into an old ceramic toilet with the lid. Yeah, very cool, good fun stuff Very cool as far as dumping your waste goes, yeah we digress Anyway.

Speaker 2 22:50

So we're back in Rubyvale. We're staying at the Gem Seekers Caravan Park. That was great. It's a tiny little caravan park. It's right in town. The reason we chose it was because it is right there in town, Easy walk to the pub, which we would highly recommend. That you go down and have a meal or two At the meal prices I think, some of the most inexpensive pub meals anywhere in Australia here at the Ruby Vale Hotel.

Speaker 1 23:17

And they have karaoke, which can be good and bad, can't it?

Speaker 2 23:21

Yes, and it was. It was good and bad, I have to say. I had an amazing vegetarian curry here at the pub, but meal prices just fantastic. In fact, we frequented the pub a couple of times during our stay here at the pub, but meal prices just fantastic. In fact, we frequented the pub a couple of times during our stay here in Rubyvale. You can also easily walk into town. Well, the pub kind of is town, but there's a little post office opposite the pub. There's also the beautiful Rubyvale Gem Gallery, owned by our dear friends. Beautiful Rubyvale Gem Gallery, owned by our dear friends, the Brown family, eileen and Mitch, and it was so great to come back after all of these years and see them and have a minute with them and catch up. And, oh, my goodness, like, if you know, the hard work of mining for sapphires is too much, then definitely just head straight to the Rubyvale Gem Gallery and pick yourself up a stunning piece of jewellery that is cut and faceted and turned into whatever it is that you are after here on site.

Speaker 1 24:28

Yeah, look, and to get a bit more history about the Brown family. I think a few years ago when we were here, I had the real privilege of being able to sit down and chat with and film an interview with Peter Brown, the father figure of this family, and very sadly he passed away a year later. So we did really miss his welcoming, open arms, open heart approach to life.

Speaker 1 24:58

Yes this time around. But, gee, it was wonderful to go back and see that his family is continuing on with his legacy. You know this self-made man who really came out with just a dream and a shovel and the hardships and his resilience to have really built up his dream into what is now this family's you know, incredibly successful business. It was, you know, really wonderful to reconnect with them and see that they still had all of his charm and want to share with visitors.

Speaker 2 25:32

Oh, absolutely. Look, I think that the Brown family really are as much a part of Ruby Vale as the sapphires that you're finding in the ground themselves. And look, we did go a hunting for sapphires and we did, we did all right. Yeah, look, we opted for the easy version of this. So, outside of the public fossicking areas that you can go out to, you do need a permit, so you do need to get online and get yourself a fossicking permit from the Queensland government. It's very inexpensive and there's different timeframes that you can get.

Speaker 1 26:05

And it is really weird. It's in a weird currency unit, it's like $11.26.

Speaker 2 26:12

Yeah, it is. I think it might be some strange GST thing, I haven't quite worked it out. But anyways, it's very inexpensive and you can do that. But of course with that comes needing all of the gear and then the knowledge of what you're looking for and how to do it. What's great about Rubyvale and Sapphire is that there are a number of what's called fossicking parks that are open to travellers and tourists, where you can go purchase yourself a big bag of wash that's all that rubbly stuff and they show you what to do. They've got all of the equipment there and then you just do it with you know, the knowledge of having somebody on hand to say is this a good one? So we opted to go to the Miners Cottage at Foster King Park and the reason we chose this one over all of the others, I have to be honest, is because for your bag of wash that, I think, cost us $30.

Speaker 1 27:06

That was a medium size. There were I think $10 or $15 kids sort of bags, and then there's $100, the serious stuff kind of wash.

Speaker 2 27:14

Yeah, which you know. They do try and upsell you. She said to us oh, you know, there's a lot more good stuff in those big bags of wash. But anyway, we opted for the $30 bag and it comes with scones and a cup of tea.

Speaker 1 27:33

So that's why we chose this one, and it was a very, very short drive from where we were staying at Gem Seekers.

Speaker 2 27:36

Such a strange thing, katie, to me. What my love for Devonshire tea. Or that you can get Devonshire tea with a bag of wash. No, you can get a bag of wash to try and find a sapphire.

Speaker 1 27:41

And we'll give you a little value out of a Devonshire tea in the middle of Rubyvale.

Speaker 2 27:47

Bloody brilliant. I say so good. Yeah, it was really good actually. And look, it's hot work, and even at this time of year it is heating up out here. So bear that in mind.

Speaker 2 27:58

Our suggestion would be don't be like us and leave it till later in the morning to go. Get there as soon as they open, at 8am in the morning, because then you're not going to be sweltering under that sun 8am in the morning, because then you're not going to be sweltering under that sun. The problem well, maybe not the problem, but that the whole thing around fossicking for sapphires and it was the same when we were out at Gemtree Paulie, wasn't it? Looking for zircon and garnet you need the sun to be able to see your hall, otherwise they all just look like rocks. So you are standing out in that hot sun.

Speaker 2 28:34

So that cup of tea and scones was very welcome. Anyway, we got our bag of wash. Tricia, who was so lovely and took all the time in the world with us, particularly Jasper showed us what to do how to wash and wash again, hence why it's called a bag of wash. How to wash and wash again hence why it's called a bag of wash and then lay it all out and what we were looking for and all the equipment.

Speaker 1 28:57

And we got quite a nifty little haul. Look, and Jasper claimed them all. He did actually there's no sharing, Mum, but then to have them sorted for you into keepers. You know, polishers.

Speaker 2 29:14

Yeah, cutters and polishers.

Speaker 1 29:15

That's it. Show and tell. Yeah, these are the ones you can take to school, jasper and you know.

Speaker 1 29:20

Show your mates and then just rocks, they divide, like it must take, you know, 15 to 20 minutes for every single person that's there for them to actually put the magnifying glass and the lights on and pick through with little tweezers and sort them out. And then they give you even a location over there in Thailand that you can send the cutters and polishers away to be professionally polished and cut for you, because the value of doing it overseas is far greater than trying to get anything done here just due to the cost of wages and by the time you send it there and they send it back and it's all done for you.

Speaker 1 30:00

it's just such better value. So there's probably about four stones or gemstones I should say that we will send off. Yeah, because what a great experience for one. But then to be able to actually find something that is worth its you know expense, to then say I found this and now I've turned it into a beautiful little stone that you could put in a ring or a pendant or something, we just love this experience and the thing that really struck home with us is that we did it. For what is it all up? A two-hour experience. These guys have been doing it for decades. It's like I'll tell you what. Once that bug gets you, you can see the appeal. But do not be fooled into thinking this is easy way to earn your keep.

Discovering Gemfields in Rubyvale

Speaker 2 30:54

No, that's so true. Okay, a couple of things. What I love about coming and doing it the way that we did at, say, miner's Cottage, is that you're pretty well guaranteed you're going to find something. Everybody walks away with a little haul of sapphires. Look, they might be all different grades, but you walk away with something to show for your time and your effort. Last time we came out here and we just had the absolute honor of spending all of that time with Peter Brown and we actually got to go mining with him into one of his underground mines, with him into one of his underground mines and we saw him picking out sapphires. Look, the size of gosh, a 10 cent piece a 10 cent Australian piece Amazing.

Speaker 2 31:40

Out of the walls of his mine. I mean, that's now, that's a whole different kind of mining, babe. It's a whole different price point.

Speaker 1 31:47

Yes.

Speaker 2 31:48

Incredible. What is out here. A couple of cool things that we learnt that we had no idea of Because we were like well, why is it called Rubyvale? You know, like the little town down the road's called Sapphire and it is the Sapphire gem fields. Why is it called Rubyvale? So we learnt that rubies and sapphires are the same thing. They're made of the exact same chemical mineral compounds. The red ones, rubies.

Speaker 1 32:16

There you go.

Speaker 2 32:16

And so when they first came out here, they actually thought that they were finding rubies. In effect, they're actually sapphires and that's hence why it's called ruby val. But there you go, because there was red stones out here. But it actually turned out to be I think Tricia told us more zircon. I think that they were finding out here at the time. Anyway, rubies are red sapphires and emeralds. What are emeralds, paulie?

Speaker 1 32:45

Are green sapphires, and there's possibly a handful of you out there that are saying no, duh, I mean. Thanks, Sherlock.

Speaker 2 32:52

Yeah, well, look, we didn't know that and we're very happy to have found that out. But sapphires, of course, do come in lots of different colours other than just blue, red and green. You can get yellow, orange. My favourite are what they call the party, Not like hey, let's go and party.

Speaker 1 33:13

If you found one big enough, you would, you would be?

Speaker 2 33:15

yes, but they've got this colour range inside of them, so a bit more like how an opal is colourised with all of the different flecks of the parties. Have a party going on. Look, we just love the thrill of finding something and watching Jasper get completely engaged. He's so serious when he is fossicking he is like hey, don't mess with me, man, this is my system, I'm in charge of washing Like he doesn't he?

Speaker 1 33:50

He just goes into true fossica mode like old time old time minor mode and look, it's hard to get an eight year old to stay focused for more than 10 minutes. You know when I used to write kids shows. You know I was working with the team over there with Disney Channel and Warner Brothers and you know different theme parks and places that I've worked over my earlier career and I used to write the scripts and I learned through a connection actually from Disney in the US that said if you take a kid from any age, like six years old through to even 16 years old, and you double their age, that is their attention span in minutes.

Speaker 2 34:37

Yeah.

Speaker 1 34:37

So six, you know you'd be lucky to get 12 minutes out of them. Eight, 16, you can do the math and in fact that's how they originally came to the length of a school, what we call in Australia a period or a session or a lesson. Yeah, it's. 40 to 45 minutes is absolutely the peak amount of time that you can keep a teenager focused on one subject. So interesting Anyways, and so that's why we used to have to write shows to the demographic age. We were trying to you know share the storytelling.

Speaker 2 35:12

Short and punchy darling.

Speaker 1 35:13

Yes, Short and punchy, get in and get it out, which this story is taking far too long. So, anyways, but interesting. So to see Jasper there for that entire two hours absolutely dedicated to the task of finding his riches.

Speaker 2 35:25

Yes.

Speaker 1 35:26

It's a great place for families.

Speaker 2 35:27

Oh, absolutely, yeah, Really well worth it. And you know a great little insight into the life that these miners, these people out here who actually live out here, have.

Embracing Outback Adventures in Australia

Speaker 1 35:41

All right, we're going to say goodbye to the gem fields Now. This location really all the way through here and to the coast was formerly known as the Dig the Tropics road trip route, and they're resurrecting that. And now we've taken on even further afield and come from Gemtree and we've given it our own name, which is Road to Riches. Well, our Road to Riches takes in the Dictotropics as well. So if you've got a shorter version in mind, we would recommend you come and start out here, because you will enjoy you know, the road trip with the Fosser King and they've got all the gear, so you don't even have to bring any. So good, all right. Now we're heading 65 kilometres to Lake Mariborne Again a change of plans due to the closures of the other national parks. Now Lake Mariborne, also known as Funburn Dam, mm-hmm. Awesome experience. We'll be bringing that to you next week.

Speaker 2 36:41

Excellent. This is a favourite spot of ours.

Speaker 1 36:44

And I love that it's the shortest drive day ever. Yes, that we've done in months and months and months 65Ks All Shortest drive day ever that we've done in months and months and months 65Ks, all right. The takeaway for this week so much of who we are is where we have been.

Speaker 2 36:58

Oh, I like that, Paulie. That's nice and deep Got to get off the couch. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 37:03

Got to get out there, got to. You know, australia, if you're here, you're lucky enough to be listening. In this lucky country of ours, you are more than likely within a two-hour drive radius of a national park which is, most of the time, free to access, you know, low cost. And to be able to get out into these natural wonderlands is a gift for us Aussies. So do it Because you are so much of where you have been. Yes, when you look back on your life, they're the rich stories, the memories that make up the fabric of you as a character.

Speaker 2 37:36

Yeah, the moments that define you Love it.

Speaker 1 37:39

All right, next week we will be gifted from a complete stranger the prized red claw Yummo. But for now we'll say dream big, look after yourself and look after your family. And happy trails.