Day 10 - 486 kms Rubyvale to Charters Towers

We've covered some serious km's and are almost at the end of our north bound leg which finishes in Cairns.

Day 10 in Rubyvale begins with a visit from local animals. Its not unusual to see livestock roaming through town as owners are happy for the animals to feed wherever there's food. We offered these guys apples and carrots while Em educated the kids about hierarchy within a group of horses (which was apparent from the way the horses behaved while we fed them).

I had to get photographic evidence of kids doing the dishes after our breaky... such happy faces.

Before we got back on the main road, we stopped at a place called Miners Cottage where the owner Gai, showed us through how to fossick for gemstones.

Step 1 Choose bucket of dirt with rocks in it (I called this purchasing a bush tattslotto ticket)

Step 2 Sift and wash your rocks.

Step 3 Flip and sort your rocks looking for the shine of gems

Here's our yield from the day. All these rocks are uncut raw gems, confirmed by our trusty teacher. These gems need to be cut and polished before they will impress, but I was quietly surprised that came away with this much from one bucket of dusty rocks. While Tom and I relaxed on the the outdoor coach, we designed our next time lapse:

About 11 am, once the heat was too much, we left Rubyvale on the road to Charters Towers - this time in 42 degree heat (a new heat record!). During one section of isolated road, we realised we didn't have enough diesel in the tank to make it to the next fuel stop. No matter, we had filled up our Jerry cans in Rolleston after making a similar mistake earlier in the trip. Sorry but it didn't occur to us to take pics of the awkward task of hoisting the Jerry can and filling up in 42 degree heat. Its fair to say our spirits were not high at this point :) There was however, some satisfaction in getting ourselves out of a pickle.

We got to Charters Towers around 430 and was welcomed by this oasis... thank god for the cool waters