Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Qld - South from Mt Isa

We had a wonderful trip south from Mt Isa with varying landscapes and many places of interest along the way.
One of the most fascinating was Devils Marbles. Out of the blue, these huge granite boulders appear and look as though they have been strategically placed there by super human strength. The balance of some of them is remarkable.
We walked along the many trails around the rocks knowing that for thousands of years this has been a very special area for the Aborigines. You can definitely feel that there is something magical about the area.
We camped about 20klms south of here and drove back the next night to watch the sunset from these rocks. Magical!

Further south we travelled to Gemtree, which is a camping area about the 140 klms NE of Alice Springs. We stayed here for two nights and had a delightful time. One of the major attractions of Gemtree is the Tag- a- long garnet fossicking tours. We spent six hours out in the heat with the flies and the wind to find some garnets. My fingers were nearly rubbed raw, I broke two finger nails, my hair was tinged red from the dust, our backs were aching from the pick and shoveling and of course that good old red dust covered our clothes and was in our shoes and socks. How much are these garnets worth? We had loads of fun, lots of laughter and we’ll eventually have some jewelry made so its’ all good.

Gemtree has a golf course which we perused but decided not to play. We thought that our golf balls and clubs would never be the same again.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Gem tree is an interesting little place. Good to see you put Mike to work on getting you some gems. Well done Di.