Longreach

Well I think I forgot to say where we were camped on my last blog. It was Sapphire. There are three towns around this area, Emerald, Sapphire and Rubyvale. Emerald is named after the Emerald Isle, nothing to do with Emeralds, Sapphire is defiantly named after the Sapphires found in this area and Rubyvale, well it seems Ruby is a red Sapphire !!! Very rare. We did have another fossicking day at Rubyvale before we left, slightly different washing and using a double sieve so that all the small heavier stones, the sapphires fall into the second sieve, we got lots if sapphire chips and a couple of bigger ones, all good fun.

After Sapphire we travelled to Longreach, arriving on Brian's birthday..... Longreach is an outback town in Western Queensland and the Qantas Founder Museum is here and we plan to visit there tomorrow. Today we went to the Stockmans Hall of Fame and went to an outback show, great fun, run by a stockman, he had his horses, whips, dogs, sheep and ended with a bullock, bit of singing, bad jokes, lots of fun.

We are camped in a free camp area, by the river about 4ks out of town, would be about 50 vans here tonight, so not lonely

Different washing for the sapphires

And once we sieved and washed all the sapphires are in the middle!!!

Sunset at our camp at Longreach

A Brolga, like a large Crane in the scrub near our van, about the size of a small emu

The Outback Show

This is his Quarter horse, well trained, every time he put the saddle cloth on, the horse would take it off

His Stock horse

Showing his riding skills

 Ended with standing on the horse

His Pack horse, he hobbled this with the leathers around the front legs and gave him a feed bag and then packed him up with his bags and swag

He brought his dogs out to round the sheep

One didn't think much of that idea and came into the audience and sat next to Brian, would rather watch the show...

He finished the show riding the bullock and singing, great show really enjoyed it

The Stockmans Hall of Fame, well I think that might be a lost Grandad in that photo.

No photos of Bentley, he stayed in the van today, too hot to leave him in the car