The King of Specking

After a very slow week and a half, finding nothing much in the diggings and only one decent cutter (pictured in the last blog), Dazz finished off with quite a bang. The day after the family left he went out specking in the morning and came home with nothing, reminding himself that perseverence was necessary. After lunch he said he was going for a walk - not serious specking.

'Leanne. Come out here.'

'Hhmmm. He's found one, and has put it on the ground for me to 'find' (since I hadn't found anything this time)' I thought to myself as I went out the door.

'Hold out your hand.'

'I thought you'd put it on the ground for me to find.'

'You wouldn't miss this one!'

As I held out my hand he place a big black rock on my palm. Wow! I held it up to the light and twisted it around. It wasn't clear like the first one, and there seemed to be a crack, but as I turned it this way and that, colour was coming right through. It didn't seem like a bomb.

It was about 3:30 on Friday afternoon. 'We have to go in to town and show the cutter. She might not be there tomorrow.' So vegies were left half cut and we raced in to town. The cutter called us a name that, roughly translates as 'lucky pigs'. It was almost 50 carats. One end definitely has some cracking but the other end looked okay, with some imperfections that may cook out. We won't know until it's cut how big it will turn out, but of course the imagination has been running wild!

On Sunday afternoon he had time for one last speck. Once again my name was called from outside the van, and this time I was pointed in the direction of the road. I had a look around, walked past it and then turned around to see a very obvious sapphire just behind me. This one was the smallest of the three, but will still probably cut a very nice stone. We decided not to take this one in to be cut just yet, but show it off to a few people first.

Now we're at the weir just south of Barcaldine (the photo is what's become of the dead 'Tree of Knowledge'), waiting for Mum & Dad to arrive. Apparently you don't have to be a Dickson to have things go wrong with your van - travelling with them, or just intending to travel with them seems sufficient! While packing the van on the planned departure day the door lock broke and they had to wait for a part, putting them a day behind. Hopefully all the breakages are behind us now!

Through the eyes of children

Dazz likes to teach people about photography, and has recently taken to letting the kids in our life use his old camera, giving them pointers along the way. His nephew took to it with a passion (maybe this is genetic too!), and even put on a couple of slide shows for us. Here are a selection of his favourite photos:

Not to be outdone, his older sister also had a go and produced a great slide show. Here are some of her photos:


















Oh, that's right, we were here to fossick. This year there seemed to be more time spent around the camp fire sampling the delights of the camp ovens than digging, but Dazz did speck a very nice sapphire.

A lot of things are genetic

We're well aware of a number of the traits that characterise Dickson males, but the more time we spend with the family the more they become apparent. This year, not wanting to arrive at the Gemfields to choose a camp and dig spot an hour before sunset, we planned an extra stop along the way. The first night Haydo, Meg & the kids made it comfortably to Chinchilla Weir, and so we decided that we would aim to catch up with them (after leaving a most lovely family wedding in Brisbane mid-afternoon). It was a late night for us, but the family awoke to find that the rude people who parked so close to them in the middle of the night were us.

The other van is only on its third trip out, so there's even more to and fro, back and forth, in and out, forgot to do this before that can happen, etc. than happens when we pack up. In the process of all of the packup one of the clips fell closed under the fly bag and as the van was wound up just enough to get the door closed it was noticed that the mechanism wasn't working properly. No one was too concerned - it could be fixed that night.

We meandered our way through country towns taking a little longer at every stop than planned, and so decided to make camp at Rolleston rather than Springsure, since there was the minor repair job to be done. What is it about Rolleston? Readers of our blog with good memories may recall that last year Rolleston was the site of an 'inside oil change' and a towbar that almost fell off...

Plan A was to wind up the top and support it with pieces of wood so access could be gained to the inside to work out what needed to be done. The top was a LOT heavier than expected and as a certain someone wound the handle it didn't seem to be going up. 'A bit more' was yelled, followed by the distinct snap of a metal cable. Hmmm. That didn't sound good.

An inital look inside the cupboards (lying on the floor of the un-popped van) didn't reveal any access into the workings of the machinery. It was a race against the sun and attempts were made to pull off panels from the outside - unsuccessfully. It was quickly decided that our travelling companions would be staying in a cabin, not the unpopped van that night. As light faded and torches were produced it was discovered that there was access through the floor of the cupboards, and the inital problem (caused by the latch that fell closed) was discovered. Fortunately it seemed like it would be easily fixed. The old mate at the caravan park had brought over a roll of wire when he heard the cable had snapped, so a plan was hatched for the morning.








A few hours of daylight and numerous trips to the back of our truck for bits and pieces resulted in a successful fixing of the cable and winder. When the clicking of the ratchet resulted in the lifting of the roof there was much jubilation.










We were back on the road and heading for a sunset arrival again! It didn't take much discussion to decide on a one-night camp in a spot we knew, then the next day we would fill all the water containers and head off looking for the perfect spot to camp and dig for the rest of the time.


This year the chainsaw wasn't left at home, and the cooking fires have been great. Stay tuned for more adventures which will no doubt occur with all the Dickson genes congretated around here.

We're back!

After a couple of long, hard weeks of marking we're back in the land of the blog. So, to catch up on the photos that have been sitting on the hard disk since they were taken...

After leaving Lake Eyre we had rain, with more rain and strong westerly winds forecast so we decided to make the most of a tail wind and head across to Menindee. The afternoon we arrived there were some dark storm clouds around, but they didn't bring rain to us - only some great photos.





Over the next few days the wind abated and the sun came out and we were able to enjoy camping right on the lake (Pamamaroo - just north of Lake Menindee).









The dirt road to Wilcannia was still closed from the floods (it opened the day after we left) so it was back to Broken Hill for a quick look around before heading east. We've left the real sight-seeing in the Broken Hill area for another time when we're not so rushed. We had a reservation at the hot pools in Morree with Dazz's aunty & uncle, so we were in a hurry!

Although the Darling River was back within its banks there was still plenty of water lying around. There were also plenty of birds around, but most didn't get close enough and still enough for a decent photo.












We saw the lizard on the road and screeched to a halt, surprised to find him in no rush to escape into the grass. He looked interesting from the outside, but when he opened his mouth he really put on a show!

Dazz almost stood on this little snake when he went to take a photo of the plowed field to the horizon. When he decided he was ready to move he was gone in a flash. Good thing he didn't go at the photographer...

A few more photos

Here are some panoramas from the Lake Eyre trip, and some photos of the rain on the way back south. Streams of water in the desert.