Today we are heading out to do some real fossicking - we are meeting a guide who is taking us to his claim site and showing us exactly what to look for and how to find it. The kids were really looking forward to it, and they were lucky that the guide, Keith, had a small, child size pick for them to use. We had to park the truck and walk the last 100metres because it was too rough for the truck to drive down. After a quick lesson on what to do and where to dig - we got to it. It is hard work -
- first, you need to dig out the rocks
- then shovel them into a bucket
- carry the bucket and pour the rocks into the tumbler that sorts them out
- then take them to the water bucket to wash and sieve through to find the sapphires.
Then you start all over again.
The kids had a ball digging around, getting dirty and wet and not get into trouble. At one point Logan was digging in a spot, that was totally the wrong spot for sapphires, but he was digging away for ages. I walked past him and noticed how far into the dirt wall he had dug and I asked him "Are you through to China yet Logan?" he looked up and answered seriously "not yet Mum".
The rock wall that we were digging into was quite hard and rocky and at one point Chris was chipping away with the pick in one section and Jack was digging not too far away when a rock that Chris hit splintered and flew off in a couple of directions. Right at that moment Jack had turned around and a piece hit Jack in the eyebrow, cutting him. I had a look and we wiped up the blood but it didn't look too bad - so we kept on fossicking. He was very lucky it didn't get him in the eye - the next day he woke up with a black eye from it - so he was very lucky.
We found quite a few sapphires and two that were "cutters", which meant they could be cut and polished for setting into jewellery. Everyone had a great day and we can't wait to try our luck at gold fossicking in the future.
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