Recommendations for fossicking areas on an impending Qld holiday?

Hi guys,

new to the forums which I've just stumbled across whilst doing some Googling.. In August, the wife and I are taking off on an 8 week trip, travelling from Perth up to Cape York. En-route we'll spend a few days at Gemtree chasing some zircons and garnet, as we've been there before and love the place.

From Gemtree, we'll then head towards the Cairns, hopefully making it to the Cape, before we start making our way home. Whilst our trip is 'general adventure', and not strictly a gem hunting gig, we had planned to spend a couple of days around the gemfields in Rubyvale for a fossick, and we're then heading down through Lightening Ridge for a quick noodle before heading home across the Nullarbor.

Our rough trip route is as follows and we'd love to find some Topaz or Sapphire to add to our rough gem collection, so would really appreciate any tips or advice on some good areas to try along our way.



Cheers Budgie

Looks like a different track to normal when you see it on the map like that hey !

I know it looks like a bloody long way when you put it on a map like that! We cant wait.. We've done other loops before but they've always been WA, WA/NT or WA/SA loops... This'll be the first time we've ventured onto the East Coast during a camping trip, although we've done plenty of the east coast through work travel etc. in the past.

Hi budgie.

That looks like an epic adventure! :Y:

If you're passing through the Mount Isa/Cloncurry region there is some interesting stuff there. There is amethyst at Kurridala, garnets at Fullarton river (the ones I have seen from there look different to the Hartz range ones and are of the more purple-coloured rhodolite garnet variety). I've never fossicked this region so other forum members may be able to give you advice.

You'll pass a couple of well-known topaz sites on the road between Normanton and the Atherton tablelands. Obrien's creek gemfield is about 30km from the township of Mount Surprise and has produced a lot of nice topaz (some biggies as well). I've been once there but never dug there.

Further east is Mount Gibson, another topaz spot located about 6km from the tiny locality of Innot Hot Springs. Innot Hot Springs is on the highway but the drive into Mount Gibson while short is extremely rough and definate 4WD only. There is a caravan park at Innot Hot Springs. I've been there quite a few times and found a reasonable amount of topaz (some of it is a very pale gold colour). Unfortunately, it seems that after I was there last time someone fell down and hurt themselves and decided it was all the property owners fault and sued them. I believe you can still go there but conditions are very strict and you need to ask at the caravan park.

Anyway, good luck! Hopefully others might be able to give you some more info.

Cheers

Thanks for the detailed reply Lefty, much appreciated. I've done some more googling on the areas you mention, particularly around Mt Gibson, and I reckon I can slip a day in there for a bit of a dig during our trip!

No worries mate. Do take care on that track into Mount Gibson - it's about the longest 6km I've ever driven, you could probably walk there almost as fast. Some very hairy gully crossings and it was different each time I went after each wet season.

There's a couple of different spots on the mountain. "Glittering star" diggings produces mainly colourless and some blue. "Patricia" diggings around the other side of the mountain produces a very pale gold topaz. The interesting thing is that these crystals make good specimens in themselves as they are only just weathering out of the parent material, have not yet had the chance to become water-worn and still have a shiny surface and the original crystal shape - a four-sided crystal with a diamond-shaped cross-section.

I never found any really large ones there myself (still some nice little cuttters though) but I bumped into a bloke there who showed me some large crystals between 50 and 100 carats that he said came from Patricia.

The digging sites themselves are small but you'll know them when you find them, a bunch of shallow pits and trenches. If you start finding smoky quartz crystals, that's a good sign :Y: