I See A Gem The Gemfields, Queensland, Australia
By grannysmith1947 on 01-Jan-14. Waypoint GC4W8XR

Nice hide and quick find TFTC

Today we headed to Sapphire and Rubyvale to explore parts of gem country. It took a little hunting before we located this cache. Comments by other cachers helped. The cache and contents were in good condition. Thanks grannysmith1947 for the cache.

TFTC. Needed to read previous logs for some help!!

A nice quick find here today. Looks like an interesting shop at this place, fossicking and food!Last night we arrived in Tambo after dark. A bit late for the chicken races but a nice warm evening to cache the main street. With sacada, we had planned to do the earthcaches. Decided we should camp nearby overnight and try to get away earlier to meet our plans.Started the day with a few earthcaches, then caches our way north to Nebo. Emerald, rubyvale and sapphire were good visits along the way, a bit of a detour, but worth it. Walking to a cache a local rode past, gave us some tips on gem hunting while walking the tracks. We didn't see any but was good to know what to recognise. A long day of driving and arrived in Nebo very late. We thought we had a good deal at $12 powered site, till the event the next day had them saying the other nebo camp was $10! Both great, thanks for your cache that guided our day.

Finished another long trip around Australia. The 6th. Back to the east coast for an event in Orange (non caching) and then a great family dinner catchup. Now heading north to Townsville with Aquilus1 to get the Palm Island LGA. A long day of travelling from Tambo to Nebo via Emerald, Saphire and Rubyvale. We managed to get 8 Earth Caches and a couple of virtuals today over about 700km. Also managed many other caches and Ad Labs as well.There had been a couple of days of talk on the radio from the gemstone area so it was great to spend some time there.Was taught how to find gems from an expert that happened to pass by on a motorbike and direct us to Policeman's Knob.A surprisingly quick machine find.

Quick find after reading hint in previous log TFTC

TFTC with Slack1962

With FiveTays-TT TFTC

Tough to search without a hint! But then read logs about reading other logs. Turns out tracks & front left is helpful info. Got the find.

Good find. Tftc

Had a stop here with bdp and The Roos. Interesting place.More interesting is how the place next door is encroaching.TFTC

Found easily at Pats!Do Pats kids run the businesses next door?Signed The Roos.Tftc

Easy find

Quick find (again) for this tag to visit! TFTC

And another one found with 2beez

TFTC found with 2As while exploring the area

Last find for the day

Thank goodness its not a nano. Now to see if we can find some gems. TFTH

Nice one to grab after a lunch! TFTC

Ocw the Bebes as we visit the area. Tftc

OCW PelDroedGwin and geodog Peppa After failing to find and gems in the field we came to see what we could have won! A nicely ticked away cache. TFTC

Was too late to fossick, but found this gem. Tftc

During our stay at the Emerald Motel, we had the opportunity to explore the area and find hidden caches. We also had the chance to take in the sights and sounds of the local area. Here's one to find today.Thank you for placing the cache grannysmith1947.

33,520. Found during our Queensland Outback GeoMuster (QOGM) 2023 Longreach Adventure - a 33 day epic tour of Northern NSW and Outback Queensland finding many caches, attending great events and catching up with awesome Cachers along the way.Queensland Outback GeoMuster (QOGM) 2023 Longreach Adventure Day 27. After a fun night at the local Pub, we packed up and cleaned out the Gemfields/Sapphire/Rubyvale region. Once that was complete we headed a little bit more East to Emerald where we both had unfinished business to attend to. This was the next one on the list. Quickly found once at GZ. Signed as F65 and A33 as required. Replaced the cache as found, then we continued on our journey.Thanks to all the COs who put out these caches !!

Found by Mary and David at 14:20. Incredible container. Much bigger than we expected. Mad dogs, Englishmen and old cachers go out in the hot Australian sun. Looked, but did not purchase any wares, just coffee. A FP. Our thanks to grannysmith1947.

Leaving QOGM 23 and heading to the Coast grabbing caches along the way TFTC

On a long awaited trip tftc

Found

Found while on our way to with Nathan_and_Alyce and rest of the MummaBear and the Cubs Gang.Thanks for the cache placement and maintenance GrannySmith1947Thanks for the huntTook nothing, Left nothing, signed logSign Logbook as MB&C and NAB

Found while on our way to with Nathan_and_Alyce and rest of the MummaBear and the Cubs Gang.Thanks for the cache placement and maintenance GrannySmith1947Thanks for the huntTook nothing, Left nothing, signed logSign Logbook as MB&C and NAB

Visiting Emerald at the moment.
Looking forward to some great finds and exploration

Cache found after short search.

Left a painted rock as trinket. If you move the rock, please post on Facebook Mackay 'Rock' where it is moved to.

On a slow, meandering trip out to Longreach for the QOGM 2023 event.
This took ages to find. I met the new owners of Pat's Gems, but they didn't know about geocaching or the cache.......but they do now!!!!!
Anyway, after resorting to previous logs and also posted images, the cache was finally unearthed. Really, its not that hard!!!! I just managed to make a meal of it!!!!!
Cache in good condition.
TNSL TFTC

Always like it when fears are unfounded. Saw the machine, groaned but to our delight an easy quick find and great size container. Tftc

On the hunting trail with SeasonedBird while on a slow roundabout route to QOGM 2023 at Longreach. A quick find here. A couple of caching days planned in and around Rubyvale, Sapphire and a chance for Mrs Geo to hit the gem fields. It’s a great day for caching.
TFTC grannysmith1947

For anyone making Geo plans, do yourself a favour and visit Australia’s only current Geotour at Ballarat while it lasts: https://www.geocaching.com/play/geotours/ballarat-victoria

And for anyone that can travel to Longreach, Queensland, late September 2023, Google “QOGM” which is the Queensland Outback Geocaching Muster. You’ll have at least 8 or 9 days of pure geocaching fun with around 200 like minded people attending a mix of events and access to over 200 geocaches placed by the QOGM team. It’s not a Mega, it’s better.

Living a bucket list!

Thanks grannysmith1947 for taking time to set out and maintain this hide and for showing us this very special part of the world

Log signed in first open spot

Find # 9506

#LockitupintheOutback

Found with O319.TFTC

Found with SJG66 on our Emerald Blitz. TFTC

This one took a little while to find. Thankfully some hints in previous logs narrowed down the search area. It was eventually found and log signed. TFTC

Quick find with a great little place. Tyftf

First one in this area, glad there are only sapphires here and no cryptonite!

Tftc tnls

30/6/23 quick find on our way to get the trail. TFTC

Sooo many miners... I mean muggles!

Quick and easy find!
Thanks mate

TFTC

Found it, good fun

Found on a coffee run. Lovely spot. TFTC

Tftc

Found it, left kinder suprise tas rock. Cool spot

FOUND TFTC WITH BARROD

found cache thanks to hints in logs TFTC

After we found some sapphires we found the cache very quick! Tftc

Great Northern escape 2022 Day 133. Emerald to The Gemfields. After a great week of caching around Emerald, I headed an hour down the road to do the caches around Sapphire and Rubyvale. I left th can in Sapphire and ventured on to visit several roadside caches and a great hill climb for an Earth cache. I finished with a failure in the cemetery, oh well.

I was happy when I found this cache that it was not too small, as this is still a large machine of the cache is too small. Plenty of people inside doing whatever is going on.

Thanks for the cache grannysmith1947

37392.4 TNLN
Visited: World Traveling Gold GC A#6 & 2012 FTF Music A#237

**Albida**

Found it towards the front of loader

Found it on tracks.

Easy one! Great for the kids. Added treasure, took a sticker

TFTC oh we dread old machinery so many hiding places

Found with Dozenmater,,TFTC

TFTC - found with rainygirl74

??

Go find

Find one in a while. Thanks

Great hide. Took two goes to find it.

Another good cache found with woolwood9.
*Enjoyed the drive / walk around.*
SL **tm/ww NZ**
*Thanks for the fun find!
Really appreciate the effort put into this cache.*

Good sized container.

Enjoying a trip around Queensland with tmann421after a two year wait for the Australian New Zealand boarders to open.
Found numerous caches and saw plenty of interesting places.
Log signed tm/ww NZ
TFTC

An easy find on this interesting machine.

Making our way back to Brisbane on a geo road trip with sweraah and stephyy. Another nice quick find here. Tftc grannysmith1947 ️

Stopping in for the evening with jodsta83 and Stephyy, jodsta83 saw this little gem rather quickly.

Thanks for the cache, grannysmith1947

Staying in Rubyvale with Swearah and Jodsta83 for the night we decided to get some local caches.

Jodsta83 making a fast find

Fun, adventure, travel, history, geology, mental stimulation, social gatherings, support and friendship are just some of the elements of geocaching.

Out and about enjoying the opportunity to grab a few caches, yours being one of those I targeted on my journey today. Thanks ??

Thanks grannysmith1947 (F=14073 H=42) for placing this cache and adding to our game.

We decided to look for this one early before the muggles started showing up. We all looked and search and looked some more. You would think that with 4 of us searching, we would have found this much sooner than we did. We ventured back in the arvo to actually go inside and had a great time. Thanks for the cache.

We are zig zagging our way north with micaparamedic, Papi4506 & Geoturtle37 and after staying at Blackall we are heading towards the Lab caches in Emerald via Barcaldine to grab a few solved puzzles there.

We had spent the night in Sapphire as the sun had set by the time we had finished the Rockhound trail. Today we were having a more leisurely day

We were early this morning to locate this cache before the crowds came and we searched for quite awhile and with this many eyes scouring over a machine it shouldn't have taken anywhere as long as it did and to make matters worse the cache was much bigger than what we were expecting but we did add our names to the log.
We came back later this morning to try our luck at a little bit of gem hunting which was also a lot of fun and found the car park full so our early morning visit was a good decision.

Thanks again for the cache.

Passing by this one, we stopped off so that I could make a find here. The cache was located after a short search and the log signed. TB Dropped also. TFTC

Completed a systematic search to find this cache today. Watch out for the wasp nest.

Found after some searching

A great gem to hide.

Found it
Deafcat DeafVW DutchAus
Thank you

Awesome with DeafPhantom DutchAus DeafVW

Headed to Pat's for lunch nice quick little find. Nothing Taken Nothing Left.

Gotcha

Had a scratch through some.wash and found the cache too. Found with NutCacheBNE

Oh boy, how we "looove" these ones. Quite easy actually. TFTC

Quick easy find on our day trip to the area. Camped at Emerald on our last leg of our outback Queensland caching trip.
Thanks for the hide.

Found with orth71 on a trip from Townsville to the outback caching
We are caching Sapphire and Rubyvale today.
Quick easy find and thanks for the caches in the area.
TFTC

TFTC caching with _hitam

Found with geo husband and Silverspirit1310. I think her comment says it all!

We spent some time sifting through our bucket of local soil and managed to find a few sapphires in amongst the many pebbles of various colours. We also spent some time looking for this hide but eventually managed to look in at the right angle. TFTC.

Not our favourite type of hide, but at least it was a decent size!

Today we decided to have a look around the gem fields, and grab a few caches as we go of course. We are staying at Emerald and love the names the towns around here. Emerald, Ruby, Sapphire-what more can a girl want!
Were we come from there’s gold in them thair hills, and we have spent many a weekend camping and sitting in freezing streams (snow melt!) panning for the elusive yellow streak. We always manage to find some, but never enuf to pay for the diesel it takes to drive there! Lucky we love it, and the fun times we have with family and friends.
Thanks to the COs for developing and maintaining these caches for us to find. We appreciate your efforts.
TFTC

Out and about around the Gem fields of Sapphire and Rubyvale, if you were not driving in the car the iimpression you get from looking around the humpies, is your are back in a time of less sophistication, piles of dirt and rocks and makeshift abodes of sheet iron, 44gal drums and anything else they could get to built a shelter to give them some cover from the elements.

Day 8 of the Darwin Geoventure 2021

TFTC grannysmith1947
Total Cache Finds 11175

We headed from Anakie to Sapphire to see some sapphires. I had no idea that they came in so many different colors. This cache was quick find for me on this type of location. Thank goodness it wasn’t a nano. I left a TB here.

Great location. Love the outback and the people. Great cache. Tsls

A morning out to log the remaining half of the trads and the multi at the Gemmies. Just RoddyC’s Earth Cache to go on another day.

This one took us way longer than it should have, but we found it in the end. Good hide. We left a dinosaur sticker.

Afterwards we went inside to say "Hi" to Pat and have a cold drink before continuing our trek.

TFTC

Logging old caches originally found with alphag_25. Now have my own account and logging them separately so that i can claim the finds or not as the case may be. TFTC.

13/01/21 Today caching around Sapphire after travelling from Blackall this morning. Roadtrip Mackay to Emerald to Barcaldine to Aramac to Blackall to Jericho over the past 3 weeks. Lots of puzzle solving before and during trip. Searched area and found GZ . Replaced and signed log. TFTC SL Searched around and around. Finally found the good sized screw top container

out and about with miss Millie geo dog doing maintance run on all my caches., new logs , a couple had to have new containers all good to go .
Thank you all for coming to the gem fields to look for our caches .Happy Caching Cheers grannysmith1947

Coool!!

Found thanks

Taking a geo tour around QLD, The Gemfields today, this is no 20, thank goodness for some help from friendly Pat, hare these ones
tyfc.

Finally had the hands on the beast Good to have a challenge TFTC

A lot easier than expected given the structure. Cache in good condition. TFTC