Anyway, onwards and upwards . We set off again. we had decided to detour slightly inland to visit Emerald and Sapphire in gem country. It was going to add on a bit more mileage but it didn’t seem too bad. We were quite surprised, however, at how soon we were into quite remote country and as we rose higher into the mountains the vegetation became less lush and was mostly spindly trees and long dry grass. We travelled for hours on often incredibly straight roads, through very desolate land without seeing any signs of any habitation. We commented on how so many Australian place names are very descriptive, such as Cabbage Tree Creek, Nine Mile Creek, Orange Creek Bus Run Road and so on. Eventually we came upon Banana, a very small place where there was no sign of a banana or a banana palm for hundreds of miles! Presumably it was named after the shape of the local creek or something? When we reached Rolleston, both the man in the petrol station and the woman at the local shop set out to prove that not all Australians are friendly and welcoming! Anyway, we paid them the extortionate prices they were charging for their wares and went on our way . We didn’t see a lot of wildlife, just plenty of dead kangaroos beside and on the road and an occasional sign warning that we were in koala country. However, there have been quite a lot of birds of prey, sulphur-crested cockatoos and a couple of huge black birds with a huge red spot on the tail feathers. We did attempt at one stage to find out more about Aussie birds but the variety is bewildering with often several different forms of a specific species. We're now leaving to the experts.

Finally we reached Emerald, in gem mining country. Here there was the opportunity to buy a bucket of dirt from any one of the numerous mines to wash and sieve in the hopes of finding a gem! We passed on this opportunity and instead took a photo of the Big Easel in the park instead. It holds a copy of Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ and is described as the largest painting on the largest easel in the world (unless you know better?) Emerald is apparently Australia’s major sunflower producer, although it must be out of season as we didn’t see any .

We continued on to Anakie (cue inevitable singing of  'Anakie in the UK...') where we saw the Big Sapphire, then to Sapphire itself, where there were yet more opportunities to spend money on a bucket of mud but also a photo opportunity with a Big Sapphire Ring, a Big Pick Axe, Shovel and Sieve, and a Big Spanner outside a car repair place. The friendly man at the local shop also informed me there was a Ute (utility vehicle, or 4 x 4 to those of you in the UK) with a big rock in the boot further down the road. He even showed me it on a postcard. It did look good (unless you were the owner who’s Ute the said big rock had landed on!), but we didn’t manage to find this one. In Rubyvale we found the Big Miner and en-route we were very excited to discover that we were crossing over the Tropic of Capricorn.

We eventually arrived, tired but happy, at Bedford Gardens Caravan Park in Rubyvale, in the middle of nowhere. The owner was new to the site and was sure that we had gone there because the name sounded ‘so English’. Actually, we had chosen this site as it advertised that it had internet access. Of course it hadn’t; we obviously don’t learn! However, the site owner encourages huge numbers of birds through regular feeding, which we were encouraged to take part in. It was a nice quiet spot, at least until dusk when a huge group of Apostle birds (so called because they seem to go around in groups of twelve) made a huge racket along with a mad display that may have been a courting ritual or may have been a scrap, we’re not sure which! The site owner explained that they are usually very noisy and another common name for them is Mother-in-Law birds (sorry Janet!).