The surrounding region is made up of fertile ground for fossickers, local mineral buff Steve Wood said this week.
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One of Glen Innes’ leading festival events if just around the corner, but Mr Woods said gem hunting is far from exclusive to Minerama.
“It is probably the second biggest thing to fishing,” he said.
“The amount of people who come because of our rivers that have sapphires in them, and there is a lot of minerals in the area. It is such an incredible area, all the way rom Torrington down to Inverell, the place is just full of the stuff.”
Rock hunters from around the country are making their way to Glen Innes searching for the iconic local sapphire as well as a host of other collectable mineral samples.
Mr Wood said a popular way to take up fossicking is sifting through a wash of deposits sourced from local rivers.
The Glen Innes Visitor Information Centre have bagged a good supply of Frazer’s Creek wash in the lead up to the Minerama Festival and are promising a sapphire pendant, valued at around $1000, for the gem hunter who can unearth the hidden token in the VIC’s stock.
“This form of it is very popular because other than that, you go to a place like Three Waters or Bullock Mountain, you go and hire the sieves, the shovel, you walk down to the river, you hopefully find an appropriate area where there might be sapphires and dig down to get to that wash then your sieve it and hopefully you find a stone,” Mr Wood said.
“This comes out of a working mine where they have excavated it all up and put it into a bag. You get to find out what you are looking for.”
Frazer’s Creek wash is currently available from the Glen Innes Visitor Information Centre.