Digging at Reward

[Lefty]

Thought I'd throw in a Queensland contribution to the forum. For those who don't know, Reward DFL is a section of the Anakie gemfield in central Queensland. The field is quite large, covering around 900 square km, divided into a number of sections - Reward, Divide, Graves hill and a number of smaller areas in the vicinity of the townships of Sapphire and Rubyvale, plus two areas further to the south - Glenalva and The Willows - and Tommahawk creek about 35km to the north. The mineralized area likely covers a much greater area but is under private grazing leases.

The field has been in operation for over 100 years, having been discovered when a team of surveyors surveying for a railway line to go from Rockhampton to the grazing lands in the west discovered some red stones in a creek bed and took them to be rubies. They were in fact zircons, the sapphires were not discovered straight away. At one stage during the 70's, almost three-quarters of the worlds gem quality sapphire was reputed to be coming from this one field.

When I was knee-high, the family had two claims at Russian gully, just behind Rubyvale. That's where I developed my love of fossicking and of wondering "what's in the ground?". Those claims and the old tin shack we stayed in are long gone, but at the age of 40 I have recently pegged my own claims at the far end of Reward, about 7km out in the bush from Rubyvale.

It's a bit different to Russian gully where the wash was about 8 feet down under a loose black soil. Here, there is a thin band of wash between 6 and 12 inches below the surface, then a floor of red clay a foot or so thick and then another, thicker wash. We've really only just started and have moved SFA dirt so far. The shallow section shows the depth of the top wash....

Initial results haven't been greatly encouraging so far - but that's prospecting. The stones are there, there's just a lot of dirt in between them! These are the only things to come out so far of any significant size. This pale mauve zircon is around 25 carats but is too shattered to be a cutter unfortunately. The green sapphire is around 5 carats and will likely cut a small stone.

The above stones were captured by 6mm apeture mesh. Running some dirt through the 3mm mesh produced about 2 dozen little sapphires, zircons and black spinels.

So the patch of ground is definately mineralized. But they ain't that easy to find - I guess they wouldn't be worth anything if they were.

I hope to update this about 6 times a year during the cooler half of the year - after about September and before about April, it's just too hot and the chances of being floodbound are too high.

Next trip out is in about 3 weeks time - crossing fingers for a bit better luck

 

[joe]

Great to see the dream turning into a reality Lefty, wish you all the best mate and thanks for sharing a story.

Here is a couple from down south (nsw) they certainly don't want to come out easy.

 

[Lefty]

Cheers Joe - some nice colour there mate, especially that aqua one. I like that really pale green/aqau in the middle of the left hand side - is it a cutter?

Many of the blues from much of our field - including the old place at Russian gully - were just too dark, a real midnight blue. Very dark blue with a green cross and cut a stone that looks almost black. That said, some very nice blues are still produced. I've been told that green stones predominate in this part of the field and that zircons are more common in the mix than back nearer to Rubyvale. At Russian gully, blue was the predominate colour and sapphires outnumbered zircons about 5 or 6 to 1. Also, in 10 years of digging at Russian gully, we never once found any zircon that resemble the Hartz range type like the one above but I've been told that pale purple and pink are not uncommon in this area. Gives weight to Jim Elliot's theory of sapphire formation and distribution

 

[richo966]

wow joe 8) 8) 8) 8)

 

[Heatho]

Nice Lefty, good luck with the venture, hopefully a nice pocket of stones will come up soon.

That Aqua stone is fantastic Joe, very very nice colour.

 

[cormorant]

Thanks for sharing your story's Lefty and Joe , I am as keen as mustard to get to your area someday Lefty , maybe next year ? it's a long haul for me eh ! so if you need an " old " hand in the future let me know ha , keep the story going it will be nice to know how you are fairing - good luck ! and I hope you find that retirement stone .
Cheers

 

[Lefty]

Cheers Cormorant. I'm always keeping all fingers and toes crossed for that retirement stone Been shown a couple out there but never found one myself. When we were at Russian gully, a couple of Europeans up the hill - there were lots of Italians, Hungarians, Romanians etc out there in those days - found a huge green stone they called "The Easter Egg" because they found it on Easter Sunday. No idea what happened to it, the people involved are all dead now.

I was shown a stunner a while back which has made the rounds out there as the "Dam Lucky Stone". 107 carat yellow/green with a remarkable colour change to pink in artificial light. He asked if I had a spare $150 000 - needless to say it was out of my price range

This is my very poor photo of it - there's a much better photo taken by someone else showing the colour transition as it turns in the light.

 

[Teemore]

Thanks for sharing Lefty,
Great insight into Qld gemstone prospecting, does a claim cost $ or is it just a necessity to ID the prospector? How big an area are you allowed at one time.
When I was a nipper my old man used to regularly go to Andamooka in SA to spend time with a mate of his that just prepared 'Cuts' with a massive CAT for other miners (was a type of open cut mining) he would often see real good quality stuff gong west until the miner thought he was at the right level of excavation .... heaps of good opal was found in the heaps from those cuts..... he always wanted me to go over there and learn to cut and prepare the opals properly.
That was just as lucrative as the mining.
Keen to follow your efforts up there, wish you heaps of luck finding the perfect stone.
Cheers Tom

 

[Lefty]

Cheers Teemore.

A claim does cost money to set up and the approval process is agonizingly slow - expect it to take a good year at least. Once it all goes through it's yours for`10 years. There are also holding costs - the mines department themselves demand an annual tribute, though it isn't big. The biggest cost is imposed by the Central Highlands Regional Council (formerly Emerald Shire Council) in the form of local government rates. Last I looked, they wanted $400 a year per claim though it may well have increased since then. Looking around, I'm not sure what I get for my money - there is no sealed road, nor any formed gravel road - just two wheel ruts through the bush. The only road maintainence that I can see is done by a bloke who has a machinery claim and is kind enough to use his endloader to dump gravel in the potholes in the track.

There is no electricity, no water, no landline - no nothing. And from as far back as I can remember, nothing seems to have changed much on the field itself to justify the charge. The infitismal amount of driving I do over the roads in the area and the smidgen of reticulated water that I use would come to next to nothing. There is now a pub at Rubyvale that wasn't there when I was little but that's got nothing to do with council.

But I guess that's local government for you :/

I went to Andamooka once for a stickbeak. Some lovely opal there and I would have liked to get a bit for the missus but everything I saw was a bit out of my price range at the time (I think the place was called "The Long Bus" or something like that). We actually got lost in the desert looking for Lake Torrens - some idiot had twisted the sign around and we went down a wrong track and drove aimlessly up and down a maze of tracks until one thankfully brought us back to Andamooka.

 

[Lefty]

A bit of field history - workmates of dad's at the time and the wild man -looking dude that used to live on the claim next door to us (photo taken approx 1980). He's actually more heavily tattooed than he looks in the photo ( a former tatooist). I can still remember my grandmother coming out to the field for the first time and laying eyes on him. He must have noticed her staring in amazement at his ink-covered body and said "yes grandma.......I've even got one down there as well." :lol:

 

[Teemore]

Thanks Lefty, always great to get an insight into jow things operate in other states.
Great explanation and like so many mining locations full of characters who are, or appear to outsiders as being a bit eccentric.
Seems almost boring down here in Victoria by comparison.
Cheers Tom

 

[Lefty]

Budget fossicking equipment. Got the idea for this "shaker table" from a bloke on another forum. Stripped the top off this old folding camping table (went and bought a new one so I didn't get my ear chewed off ) and replaced the top with fairly heavy gauge steel mesh 75mm x 50mm. Added another 400mm in height to the legs, since it was meant to be sat at as a dining table not stood in front of as a workbench. You put your sieve on the table, fill it from the wheelbarrow and shake it back and forth or work the dirt with your hand. The dirt falling through your sieve just falls straight through the mesh table top - the table holds the weight and saves your back a lot. Very good if you intend to spend all day sieving. Pull the leg extensions off and the table still folds up like a normal camping table and doesn't weigh much. Just need to finish the edges with some angle aluminium or something.

As luck would have it, dad still had a sheet of 6mm apeture mesh. So I cut the end off a 44-gallon drum and punched the top out, leaving a 1.5 inch lip all the way around the inside. Used the drum top as a template to mark the mesh - she's strong, I was able to stand on the thing while holding down the mesh to mark it. Cut out the mesh circle with an angle grinder and dropped it inside, after first tapping the lip down level. Put a dozen small bolts through the mesh and lip - will put some super-duper construction adhesive around the edge inside and underneath to cover the bolts and any sharp edges and run a piece of old garden hose around the top edge for the same reason - voila! A good-sized sieve for a very modest sum.

When you're going to dig all day for days on end, it really pays to have everything you can to make the task physically easier, especially once you're past 40 and if it's not easy by the time you're 60, you probably wouldn't do it.

 

[cormorant]

Table and sieve ideas very appealing Lefty , being one of the over 60s gang! we need to think of everything to make life a bit easier .all suggestions welcome , when I sieve in the rivers here I carry a foldaway tool bag into same carrys gold pan, 2 sieves and a 70mm polystyrene slab cut over size and round -so as to tip sieve onto , works very well and on a fold up stool you don't need to be bending down all day !.oh us old guys are not givin up yet eh ! there's still life after 6 0 and gems as well ha ha . Cheers Colin.

 

[Lefty]

Table and sieve ideas very appealing Lefty , being one of the over 60s gang! we need to think of everything to make life a bit easier .all suggestions welcome , when I sieve in the rivers here I carry a foldaway tool bag into same carrys gold pan, 2 sieves and a 70mm polystyrene slab cut over size and round -so as to tip sieve onto , works very well and on a fold up stool you don't need to be bending down all day !.oh us old guys are not givin up yet eh ! there's still life after 6 0 and gems as well ha ha . Cheers Colin.

Simple labour saving devices make things so much more enjoyable don't they? I can't believe we used to bust a gut standing up with big sieves that size all day long Dad is nearly 70 but has no intention of giving up fossicking, despite myriad health issues and more artificial parts than the 6 million dollar man. When we pick over the gravel bars on the Fitzroy like we did today, a pair of those long rubbish grabbing tong-thingies that council workers carry is great for picking stuff up without having to bend his back.

 

[sapphireminer]

Hi Lefty that photo of the tattoo man looks like Inky from Divide if it is he is still alive and kicking only just though in Rubyvale Regards Dave

 

[Lefty]

Hi Dave - yep, that's Inky alright. I haven't seen or spoken to him for about 20 years. We had heard he was living at Goanna flats.

Cheers

 

[sapphireminer]

Hi Lefty he is up on Normans hill I lived next door for a while. I am now just up the road from his old claim at Divide Regards Dave

 

[Lefty]

Cheers Dave.

I was there a couple of years ago showing a mate from Adelaide the old claim (same bloke will be out there with us the week after next), the remains of Inky's old shack were there but I couldn't find the slab of ours. I found what I reckon was the same turkey tree that was against the back wall but couldn't be certain if I was standing where the old shack had stood - grass was long at the time.

Sounds like you're up where the Europeans used to be when I was a kid - Carlo Fasci (spelling?), Joe Sicilani and Fred and Joanne Horvath. Carlo and Joe are dead, don't know about Fred and Joanne, heard they moved to Kuranda.

There seemed to be quite a few Europeans with thick accents there when I was little but since I started going back out there a couple of years ago, the only one I know of is Max at Rubyvale cut and slice.

 

[Greg&Nat]

great info guys thanks!!!

 

[Lefty]

Two days of work left after today - getting antsy, I just wanna be out there digging now Got most of the tucker pre-made so we only have to re-heat and eat, couldn't be bothered cooking after digging all day (will still cook the meat out there). Days should be perfect, nights chilly (Emerald forecast down to 5 degrees the night before we go), better pack woolies. And some warming fluid of course