Frosty's Fossicking Frolics
Lazza Rock (Labradorite) - Hogarth Range
- Weather: A cooler night, 10.2° at 4:30am and reached a sunny, cloudless 28.4°.
- Wind: Calm.
It was a cooler night, I awoke at 6am and got up and showered, Marg awoke about 7:00am, we had brekky and left camp at 8:15am to meet Bruce at the front
gate of the park. Bruce (President of Lismore Gem Club) was the organiser of our tag along tour, there were 8 people in 4 4WDs, we left at 8:30am and followed
Bruce about 30kms from Casino to Steve's farm, who lets us on his property to fossick for Labradorite.
We headed west along Bruxner Hwy for 22kms, then turned left into Bulmer Rd (-28.846753, 152.844450), after 7.9kms you turn right (-28.903707, 152.819813), about 0.8km on the left is Steve's farm (-28.905013, 152.811632), Bruce put our money (Steve charges each person $3 to fossick) in an envelope and placed it in his letter box. He has a Golden Retriever and an old German Shepherd, both dogs barked and walked out to greet Bruce but appeared friendly. We continued to the gate (-28.910023, 152.798582) 1.4kms on our right, leave the gate as you find it, you drive over his paddock to where the 3 trees (2 live and 1 dead one in the middle) are, about 450 meters from the gate (-28.908328, 152.798260).
You will see a wire fence about 50 meters away to the west. See my photos below. The Labradorite is on the other side of the wire fence, you will see some
scratchings, but dig wherever you want. We dug in the same spot for the 2 hours, which ended up about 1 meter square and about 100mm deep. The Labradorite
is in the top 100mm of soil. Marg reckons that we averaged over 20 pieces per sieve and upto 50 pieces. See the photo of our haul below.
We were so lucky to meet Bruce yesterday, who just happened to leading a tag along today, which we joined. That is luck.
The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing back at camp, before driving to Lismore to pick up Luke's old iPhone, which he gave to us, from Jo's mum who
lives there. On the way back to camp, we topped with fuel and stopped at KFC for dinner, it was extremely YUMMA.
Tomorrow we are off to Glen Innes for 6 nights.
Marg in action.
Our fellow fossickers.
It was an easy area to fossick.
Pick a shady spot and away you go.
An easy spot.
Members of our group.
Closer view.
The parking spot.
An easy short walk to the fence.
Steve's honesty box and his dogs.
A helpful sign.
Nice scenery views.
Nice scenery views.
Nice scenery views.
Back at the Bruxner hwy.
Our haul.
Our haul.
Our haul.
Our Hogarth Range fossicking route.