Alice Springs and Gemtree

Peter and Susan had enjoyed noodling and were immensely proud of their finds, so we decided to head up to Gemtree on the Plenty Highway.

We listened to the ‘DIY Tour Guide’ again as we drove from Erldunda to Alice Springs.We heard that there was a meteorite site about 12 kilometres to the west off the Stuart Highway. We planned to go there, but the road was so bad from all the rain that it was closed.

We stopped at Alice Springs on the way through and headed into the School of The Air for a tour. It was organized by a school system rather than by the parents. It was really different, and from the way it was presented it seemed like these children had much more of a ‘school’ approach to their learning than a home schooled child does.

We drove up past the Tropic of Capricorn to Gemtree. The next morning at 8.30am we joined the tour out to the gemfields and fossicked for garnets. Dad dug into the hole and washed his soil how the man had demonstrated.Peter, Susan, and Lucy  found lots of small pieces on the surface and were content with this so didn’t bother with digging. Mum tried briefly, then lost interest and followed Edmund around.

When we returned to the campground we emptied out our finds to be appraised. Apparently they are measured in mm, with the smallest size worth cutting being 3.25mm. Peter was pleased with the news that he had two garnets that were 3.25mm. Susan was delighted with three stones of that size. Dad had found many stones ranging from 3.25 to 5mm, 5 stones of 6mm and 3 stones that were 7mm.

Several other people at the campground who indulged regularly in the hobby of fossicking for precious and semi-precious stones advised us not to have the stones cut in Australia. They said that a Thai company was very cheap, very good, but particularly slow. We got the address of the website and later when we returned to Alice Springs we sent the garnets off to Thailand hoping for the best. We put Susan’s opals in the package, too, to see if they could be made into necklaces for her for her birthday.

We stopped before we reached Alice Springs to spend the night on a campground straddling the Tropic of Capricorn. We were officially still in the tropical region of Australia that night, and drove over the line of latitude in the morning after a few hours of the kids riding back and forth on their bikes.

We walked around Alice Springs, racing each other down the boggy Todd River and avoiding the few puddles. “Did you know that they had to cancel the Todd River boat race one year, Mum, because there was water in it?” Peter tested.

We sauntered down the relaxing Todd Mall. It had a very relaxed yet cosmopolitan feel to it. Police mounted on horseback road passed us. They stopped for the children to pat. Lucy asked, “Can I have a ride?”

“We used to be able to take children for rides,” The police lady responded, wearing the Northern Territorian khaki uniform rather than the familiar blue of the Victorian police. “But we can’t anymore because of the public liability insurance.”

While we were in Alice Springs again we sourced five truck tyre tubes to take down to the West MacDonnell Ranges with us.

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Amy and Jarrad

Travelling Australia in a campervan since 2009 with our four children aged 4, 7, 10, and 11. We are a family living on the road. Stopping to work in rural and remote towns as we need more money, we love this lifestyle. The four kids are homeschooled as we work our way slowly around Australia.

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