Jaypatrol

There were information boards explaining the difference between the wet and dry seasons in the top end. There is also a welcome to Central Australia board with the usual tourist information. We read all the different panels – these were quite informative.

After leaving the area, we continued our journey.
Reaching the Tropic of Capricorn was a real buzz for us.     
We had never travelled this far north, it was the perfect marker point for the trip. Again there were lots of information to read on the panels on display.

We continued onto Gem Tree. This is a unique area that is full of gemstones just waiting for someone to discover.
When it was suggested for us to go there, I have to admit, I wasn’t too keen on the idea.        
There are no shops; so you have to take all your requirements with you, including water. The only power is via a generator and this is only run between 7am and 10pm. So there are no heaters after 10pm. As the weather was quite cold at night, we would have to have extra blankets and hot water bottles to keep warm. Not my type of a fun time.   

     

When we arrived it was very warm during the day and we couldn’t even use the fan or air-conditioner to cool the caravan.
We booked in for a couple of days. Lindy and Margie were going to meet us there later in the day.

Whilst checking in, we enquired about the gem field trips and what was available to book. We were told we were too late to book onto the tour to the Garnet field. I was a little disappointed as I wasn’t really too interested in the other one which was to go to the Zircon field.
After we decided to book onto the Zircon field trip anyway, the lady told us that we could buy a wheelbarrow of diggings and fossick through it for Garnets seeing that we missed out on the field trip. After discussing it between us, Arthur & I decided to give it a try. (There wasn’t anything else to do there).
So we ordered the barrow of diggings for after lunch.

We proceeded into the park and set up at our delegated camp site in the bush.
This was cetainly going to be very different to what we had ever done before

.

After setting up camp and having some lunch, we went to try our hand with the wheelbarrow of dirt and stones. The lady showed us how to fossick and what to look for in the barrow. She then left us to do our own fossicking. It was getting very warm and lots of flies as we sat at the table and began to get dirty.

After a few minutes, I found a decent sized Garnet. Now I was hooked!
We worked for most of the afternoon, at least till Lindy and Margie arrived. We did find quite a few different sized and different quality Garnets. But weren’t too excited at first. It was tiring work and we were very weary, dirty, hot and dusty by the end of the day.
We asked the owner if we could finish our barrow the next day after we came home from the Zircon field trip. They kindly placed the rest of our barrow behind their house so that we could come back to it later.
 
Lindy and Margie did finally arrive and left us to set up their campsite. We wandered over to them to tell them of our days work.

The day we arrived at GemTree was Territory Day and there were fireworks planned by the owners of the park for that night. So we had to get cleaned up and have tea early in preparation for the big night ahead.
 
It was getting very cold as we rugged up.  Carrying our chairs we headed for the big bonfire that was lit for the nights fireworks. The bonfire was nice and warm and the fireworks were great.
We all enjoyed them.

The next morning we were up early and ready for our day on the Zircon field. It was hard and dusty work. Arthur and Margie wielded the pick digging the hard ground and Lindy and I did the sieving and searching for the elusive Zircon. We did manage to find some good Zircons too. Lindy and Margie found a couple of quite large pieces. Unfortunately, there were shattered and not worth as much as we had hoped for.

At the end of the day we headed back to the camping ground to finish off searching through the wheelbarrow for Garnets. Margie and Lindy helped us finish the rest of the barrow.
We gathered up all our findings of both the gemstones and headed for the gemshop onsite and to see how well we had done with our findings.

I was very surprised to find that we had found a few good sized garnets that were suitable to have jewellery made out of them. Also we had gathered enough good sized Zircons too. So with our good finds we had a necklace made up with the largest Garnet and a ring with the second largest Garnet in the centre surrounded by the 2 largest Zircons. Not bad for a couple of days work. Especially as I didn’t really want to go there in the first place.

Lindy also had some jewellery made with her finds.

After ordering our jewellery, we prepared to pack up and leave the next morning for our next stop off point – Whycliffe Well.