Sapphire- and hopefully, sapphires

We're here in Sapphire Caravan Park, a really lovely spot (thanks R and H, and other people who recommended it).  There are two vans here which arrived for a week (separately) two years ago and still haven't left.  Last night there were 25 bikers in residence but thankfully they were quiet (having been up till 2am the previous night, we were told).  They've left in a procession this morning after many calls of "Get on your bike, Eric!"  "Hurry up, Eric!"  Apparently they come from Maitland, only 30 odd kilometres from us.  They're in a club and have lots of get-togethers like this, some with families, some without.They're not young guys- some are Vietnam vets and were going to an Anzac service.

For some reason Gloria, our GPS, didn't recognise Sapphire or nearby Rubyvale or even Anakie, where you turn off the highway.  (I suspect that a hundred years ago, some prospector bloke said "We're living in anarchy, mate", and Mate, being a bad speller, told the folks back home in a letter where they were.

This is a lovely caravan park, quite unusually based on a hillside but the individual sites are level with concrete slabs.  There's an excellent camp kitchen and several amenities blocks, and the people are very friendly. It's very quiet and there are dozens of birds, also wallabies and a frog was blocking the drainage hole I tried to put our outlet hose into.  He was so tiny, and the colour of the surrounding pebbles- if he hadn't been wet we wouldn't have been able to see him at all.  There are also cane toads, of course.

This morning a group of us were gathered around 6 or 8 lorikeets which were sitting on the luggage of our neighbours, who were in the process of departure, kids already in the car. She grabbed her camera and tried for a close-up- one bird kept hopping closer and closer, and finally hopped ONTO her camera, so hubby had to grab the other camera to take the shot.  

John and Margaret (and Ruby the dog) arrived after taking the long way round, so we're all together today planning what to do.  This is a fossicking place (for sapphires, of course) and we are also planning on putting some traps in the dam for red-claw yabbies.  It's a small village which we have yet to explore, and of course it;s a public holiday so nothing will be open.  

On the way back to Emerald the other day, we saw a derailed coal train.  Apparently it's been there since last October.  We'd previously seen a derailed train in Canada, which was lying on its side- this one has had several trucks completely overturned.