On a rather wet and windy Friday morning (21 April 2006), eight intrepid travellers, four members of the Mordialloc club and four of the Essendon club, set up in a ten seater Cessna 404 for a 1hr 15min trip to Flinders Island, in search of the now rather elusive Killiecrankie Diamonds, otherwise known as topaz.

To our delight, the weather improved the further over Bass Strait we flew, and we landed at Whitemark airport in lovely sunshine.

After a quick visit to the local shops to stock up on our supplies for the next five days, we ventured in our people mover to Killiecrankie. It was a great trip – due to the fact that we took a couple of major wrong turns and actually had a good look at parts of Flinders Island we had not planned on seeing.

The weather stayed good for the entire visit. It was a bit of a trek to the topaz bearing areas, however as our average age was high 50s (thanks to the one 30 year old who made the trip) we feel that we tackled some pretty mean rocks rather well. We stayed in a lovely holiday house with great views over the bay and surrounding hills. Thanks to some very creative cooking we dined very well, two members taking a turn to prepare the evening meal.

We moved rock after rock, but as the locals told us, the topaz is getting rather hard to find now. I’m sure that if some Tarzan types were able to use their muscle, more could be unearthed. We all found something to bring home, and having a few days away with great company made it all worthwhile.

A special thanks to Suzanne of Mordialloc club who organised the trip – a great job, the rest of us just had to pay up and enjoy the whole experience.

A couple of our group had been to the island previously, however, the first timers were very impressed and we thought we could get our hands on more of the topaz, we would make the trip again.

Searching for elusive Killiecrankie Diamonds (topaz).