Who would have thought we would be off fossicking again?  Well we have!  This time fossicking for 'Topaz' in the gemfields of Mount Surprise.  You have to travel about 40kms north of the town to 'O'Brien's Creek' fossicking area.  We did learn something from Rubyvale and we booked with the local 'Gem Fossicker' Peter, who just happens to have a wife named Pam!  We found out later in the day that they have a son living in Geraldton working for the Fisheries Department.  Who knows, Peter may even come across him when we are back in Gero.Fossicking in this area is hot, dusty work!  There is no need for a 'Willoughby' to wash the stone.  You just shake!  I can't believe that I shook all morning and didn't find one!  Peter found four while he was digging and then while I was having a drink of water, he shook, and found another!  They are all worth cutting, so we will see what 'Peter and Pam Blackburn' come up with, when Pam does the 'faceting' later in the year..  There was one in particular that Pam was quite excited about.   She had not seen one like it and the way she suggested it is cut, will be something different to what they would normally do with such a stone.  So it is going to be a surprise for both of us!  We did actually go off on our own for a while after we finished the tour with Peter.  But it was very hot and we didn't find anything after digging and shaking for an hour.  We now fully realise, why Peter only does the tours until lunchtime.  That is long enough!We must have got ourselves a sharp stone on the way home!  Peter noticed we had a tyre going down when we pulled up to take the fossicking gear back.  So that topped off the afternoon for him! He was feeling a bit knocked up by the end of the day, because he changed the tyre and did what was necessary to get us to our next stop.  Saturday was our tour out to the 'Undara Lava Tubes'.  We had no idea these lava tubes were here until we were talking with the couple alongside us at Charters Towers.  It seemed that most on the tour had found out the same way as us.   This was another tour we organised through 'Bedrock Village and Caravan Park'.  I did say they have a pretty good little business happening here!  The train was back in Mt Surprise on Friday night and most of the passengers stayed in cabins at the park for the night.  They also had their evening meal at the park.  One of the CP cooks Janet, was on the tour with us.  She finished up yesterday and had decided before she left Mount Surprise, she needed to do the 'Undara Lava Tubes' tour.  She has been here since the beginning of May, and her two children had joined her to have a weeks holiday with their Mum, before all go back to Victoria.  All of the staff have their profiles in the caravan park manual.  All are looking for something different to do for four or five months. The weather in Mount Surprise during the dry season is very inviting.  Joe and Jo, employ 20 people during the tourist season.  Of course it supplements the income and then they can go off travelling for the rest of the year!  They can also go exploring on their days off. Ian was our tour guide today and he truly was fantastic.  We were also on the bus with Ian on Thursday when we came back from Einasleigh.  He was so knowledgable and has travelled all over the world.  This is the second season that Ian has been a Bedrock.  We left the park just after 8.00am.  On the 40 minute drive to the 'Undara National Park', Ian gave us information about the cattle stations in the area, Mt Surprise and how the 'Undara Lava Tubes' were found and the area becoming a National Park. Mt Surprise got its name after a chap named Ezra Firth, came through with his cattle.  They were camped at 'Junction Creek' and one of his bullocks decided to stray during the night.  In the morning, his son Tom tracked the bullock to the bottom of a hill.  Tom stumbled upon the camp of over 100 indigenous people.  They were all surprised!  And that's how the town got its name!   The hill became 'Mount Surprise' and later when the town was established it took the same name.  All this happened in 1864.  So in 2014, Mt Surprise celebrates 150 years since it was first named by 'Ezra Firth'.The National Park was a cattle station and the people who had purchased, what is now the 'Undara National Park', from their neighbour, knew of the lava tubes and envisaged diversifying a little into tourism at some stage.  Around 1964, the new road through to the gulf was surveyed and interest increased in the lava tubes, to the extent that one of the surveyors went to the Queensland Government and said "Something needed to be done to protect the lava tubes".  It took over 30 years for something to be worked out between the Government and the family who owned the property.  They now have established a very nice environmentally friendly tourism village, upon land that is leased from the Government within the National Park.  Ian didn't actually say, but the Government must have purchased the land that has become the National Park, from the family.   Guess that was also the main reason it took so long for it all to happen.  Our first stop was 'Kalkani Crater'.  We walked around the rim of the crater and Ian gave us lots of info about the vegetation in the area and volcanoes.  We all agreed when we were back in the carpark, that to walk the rim without a tour guide, wouldn't have been half as interesting.  The public can come into the park and walk the rim of 'Kalkani Crater', but the only way you can see the lava tubes is through a tour.  'Kalkani' is an aboriginal word meaning bowl or dish, referring of course to the crater.  Whilst standing on the crater rim, Ian pointed out where the lava tubes were and told us about 'semi evergreen vine thicket'.  This is the thickets of trees that grow where there is volcanic stone.  Because of the stone, fire cannot get to these trees and vines, and what we saw today was as it would have been before the aboriginals came to this land. Before there were any fires, and when the country had megafauna.   All of this history is fitting in with what we have been told at other tourist attractions like the heritage listed area at Naracoorte in SA.The whole area is situated within the 'McBride Volcanic Province' and contains 164 volcanoes, vents and cones. Undara is the longest lava tube system in Australia, and the longest recent lava flow from a single volcano in the world.  The volcanic activity that formed the tubes occurred approximately 190,000 years ago and the volcano 'Undara' expelled massive amounts of lava.  In total it was estimated that over 23 billion cubic metres of lava was released, covering an area of 55 square kilometres.  Ian's explanation of how the lava tubes were formed was to think of it being like custard!  As the lava spilled along and the air became cooler at night, the sides of the flow cooled and started to form the edges of the tube.  The top was the custard bit!  He asked us what happens with custard when it is left to sit?  When the lava flow reduced, then it formed like a skin on the top.   Then the lava started to flow again, and so the process went on.  Makes sense!  There were two lava flows from the 'Undara Volcano'.  The flow went 90kms to the north and 160kms to the north-west.After morning tea of homemade bicky's from the 'Bedrock Kitchen', we went to our first lava tube.  This was called the 'Wind Tunnel' complex.  One of the tubes was called 'The Ballroom'.  Ian asked if anyone could sing and a lady put her hand up!  She sang 'Amazing Grace' for us all.  It was absolutely beautiful and a definite highlight of the tour.  The acoustics in the tube were amazing!Then we travelled to 'Undara Lodge' for lunch.  They really have done a great job in establishing this area. The family purchased old railway carriages after freight ceased to be railed on the 'Etheridge' line and they have converted the carriages into dining areas and cabins.  After lunch we went to another beautiful section of a lava tube called 'The Arch'.  This one was not very long and the son of the family who had once owned this land, was married in 'The Arch'.   What an ordeal it would have been to get the bride down there, but how unique and special the wedding ceremony would have been!  Then we had 'Barkers Tube' to walk down.  This is the narrowest of the lava tubes and it is the only one that had water right at the end.  We walked over rough and a slippery surface at times, to see it.  There were lots of bats in this tube as well.  I was beginning to think it was more of an endurance test, until Ian said that "If everyone was up to it, we would walk until we could see the water"!Finally Ian took us to a hill, which we climbed for 360 degree views of the whole area.  Then he offered to take group photos with the cameras.  He was a real 'Harry Butler'!  Janet dared me to call him that, but I wasn't game!  It was another full day, and another great day!  We didn't get back to the park until 5.50pm.  And I did say there were surprises!  This is 'Blog 100'!  I would never have thought it possible that I would stick at it this long!  Really pleased that I have though!  I have had the 'Canberra Blog' still in draft mode since the end of March.  I worked on it a bit in April and it all got too hard to keep up and it has just sat there!  I had put lots of information to photos though, so I knew I would get it done one day!  I set myself a goal and a challenge, to get it finished before I published No 100.  It is massive!  My 'Blogging Tip' is.... Never think you can do eight days in one blog. 

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