Mt Surprise

I am madly in love with Mt Surprise. It's a bit difficult to put a finger on why, as there isn't much there. Perhaps it is Bedrock village caravan park, which is a lovely oasis, with large private sites and the most enormous showers I've ever seen.  It also has dinners every night and a great cafe, and a pool, although it was a bit chilly for that.  The cold snap was surprising to all, and the poor residents were all rugged up.

We did a tour of the nearby Undara lava tubes, which are caves left by a long lava flow through the area.  The tour started with a walk up the Kalkani crater and around its rim.

We then headed off to the lava tubes.

The second tube was deeper, and there were some bats!

The tour also included a look at the Undara International Airport.

The other main attraction here is topaz fossicking.  No tag along tours here - we hired gear and I finally got my own fossicking licence!  Yay!  We drove 40km to the public site along the creek and set to work. It was a glorious place to spend a day, and we had a picnic lunch.

And yes, we did find some topaz!

I think I could really get into gem fossicking :-)