Area Photos
| We use this tripod setup for all our on field sieving adventures. |
| This little guy helped us with our lunch. |
| Digging and sieving can be hard work so I got the wife to have a go as well. |
| After a hard day of digging its time to relax back at the campsite and feed the local birds. |
| The camping ground area and only facilities. |
| The Topaz we found. |
| Feeding my wife to the birds at the O'Briens Creek Caravan Park. |
O’Briens Creek
2007 - By John Boom
Mount Surprise is the main last town before O'Briens Creek and there's a
caravan park and a few stores in the town. The Caravan Park in the center of
the town has a nice selection of gems on display as well as live birds and
those miniature ponies.
O’Briens Creek gemfield is the actual fossicking area for Topaz. Aquamarine,
Smoky Quartz, Citrine and Cassiterite can also be found in the same area.
The caravan park there doesn’t have power only showers and toilets. You
can get some drinking water from a tap adjoining the toilet block. It’s all very
basic but a most beautiful area. This is an area well worth spending some
weeks at for a holiday.
You have to travel approx. 35 kms down a corrugated dirt road from Mount
Surprise to get there. It’s around a 2 klm drive from this park to most of the
fossicking areas. I suggest you bring enough food and water for the period
you wish to stay before getting there. We stayed here for a few days and
found some topaz.
You can use the same tools as per sapphires but you’ll only need a quarter
inch sieve here. You can dry sieve but for best results it pays to dip the final
sieve after dry sieving into water. It just shows the topaz up better. Digging
here is a little easier but it’s still hard work as you can see by the hole we
were in on the photos.
Take some bread with you and feed the parrots in the caravan park and you’
ll find them all over you, as they were very tame. The park managers were
very friendly and helpful with advice on the best places to search. You can
have a campfire for your personal use there if you like. A four wheel drive
vehicle is best in this area or if you can take a four wheel motorbike to get
around the tracks would be just as good.
2007 - By John Boom
Mount Surprise is the main last town before O'Briens Creek and there's a
caravan park and a few stores in the town. The Caravan Park in the center of
the town has a nice selection of gems on display as well as live birds and
those miniature ponies.
O’Briens Creek gemfield is the actual fossicking area for Topaz. Aquamarine,
Smoky Quartz, Citrine and Cassiterite can also be found in the same area.
The caravan park there doesn’t have power only showers and toilets. You
can get some drinking water from a tap adjoining the toilet block. It’s all very
basic but a most beautiful area. This is an area well worth spending some
weeks at for a holiday.
You have to travel approx. 35 kms down a corrugated dirt road from Mount
Surprise to get there. It’s around a 2 klm drive from this park to most of the
fossicking areas. I suggest you bring enough food and water for the period
you wish to stay before getting there. We stayed here for a few days and
found some topaz.
You can use the same tools as per sapphires but you’ll only need a quarter
inch sieve here. You can dry sieve but for best results it pays to dip the final
sieve after dry sieving into water. It just shows the topaz up better. Digging
here is a little easier but it’s still hard work as you can see by the hole we
were in on the photos.
Take some bread with you and feed the parrots in the caravan park and you’
ll find them all over you, as they were very tame. The park managers were
very friendly and helpful with advice on the best places to search. You can
have a campfire for your personal use there if you like. A four wheel drive
vehicle is best in this area or if you can take a four wheel motorbike to get
around the tracks would be just as good.
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