About 20kms west of Georgetown we stopped at the Cumberland Gold Mine Site, now defunct. The chimney stands as a lone relic from the crushing plant beautifully constructed by Cornish miners. There were signs of an orchard nearby.
The billabong down the hill was teeming with bird life and we were very tempted to stay and watch the birds and animals come down to drink at dusk. The water-lilies were profuse. We reluctantly moved on to meet Paul and Kerry who had gone ahead.
GEORGETOWN
The Visitor Centre here had a phenomenal exhibition of minerals and gems which was worth every cent of the $8 entry fee. The Terrestrial Centre is a collection which is the work of Ted Elliot and contains over 4500 mineral specimens.
Below are just some of the amazing things we saw.
We'd been told about fossicking at O'BRIEN'S CREEK CAMPGROUND which is 35 kms from Mt. Surprise. We drove through terrific grazing country, past curious Brahman cattle grazing placidly along the way...... often on the road.
We had our most challenging 4x4 driving so far, going up several jump-ups to get to the top where the best fossicking was. In fact it was hair-raising in places because of deep ruts and wash-aways.
There was an interesting fellow camper, known as Tim the Finn, who was carving large sapphires to be later set and sold. He had some amazing stories to tell and great photos of his adventures.
Our camp overlooked the creek and we took advantage of the water supply to do a big wash. You get very dusty and dirty fossicking, which involves shovelling dirt and chopping rocks out of the creek banks whilst sitting on the creek bed. We were looking for topaze and crystals.
We spotted apostle birds, bower birds, pale-headed eastern rosellas, galas, storks, blue-eyed honey eaters, magpies, lorikeets, and many other birds.
We loved the quarantine car wash facility as we drove in and out of Mt Surprise.. We did it twice both ways to rid our car and van of some of the accumulated dust.
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