Days 17 – 20 Anakie – ON THE ROAD

2 – 5 July

Four days later and we are still at Anakie. For awhile Norm has been experiencing chest pain, so before we move into more remote parts we decided to pop back down to Emerald Hospital just to make sure his heart is ok. The very efficient and impressive team there soon had him wired up and bloods taken. After most of the day there he was reassured that all is well.

Although our mate Laurie Barber says ‘It never rains in the desert’ it did rain in Anakie for the next couple of days. Rosie and I still managed plenty of walks in between the showers. I was very amused to read the tale about the sparrow who kept falling off his perch at the old Anakie Pub

By Saturday the rain was gone and the sunny dry weather had returned to our delight. Over the next couple of days we explored more of the gem fields including Sapphire and Rubyvale. Our exploration to the Sapphire Wetlands was cut short when a swarm of very cross very large very black ants clambered all over our shoes and quickly up our legs when we paused to photograph some pretty red flowers. We were soon dancing the Corroboree of the black ant. When we retreated to the car Norm had to take off his jeans to dislodge some of the more persistent invaders. We did laugh about the experience but have no intention to return to the Wetlands.

We were thrilled to stumble across our first Brolgas this trip, ambling down a street in Sapphire.

Of course we just HAD to indulge at the café selling the best apple and cherry strudels in the gemfields. The coffee was served with a shot of port.

We enjoyed our decadent treat in a garden oasis – perfect surroundings for a pause in our gemfield amblings. The next day we decided to try our hand at noodling for sapphires snd other precious gems. I suspect we probably discarded anything of value given our ignorance about fossicking. We do have a few tiny blue dots if stone.