Marion and I decided that we'd take a fossicking trip to Trentham to go looking for sapphires and anything else we could get our hands on. We started with a visit to Marion's relative's place in the area, where they served up some delicious local bread and we admired their antiques and bric-a-brac. We also picked up our keen local guide who wanted to tell us all about the gold rush and other Australian fossicking history. After admiring a large gold nugget he had and perusing history books about the era, it was time to get going into the great unknown (ie, the Lederderg Forest).

We travelled by old station wagon on rough roads that my car would be scared to go down, and ended up near some creekside ground surrounded by high grass and trees. This was real bushland, the kind that there are no walking tracks to because the ground is uneven and even treacherous at times. Just how treacherous, Marion and I were to find out.

Our guide pointed us (literally, he had a crook leg) in the direction of a gully and Marion and I scrambled down into it to pan some puddles at the bottom. I whipped out my black plastic pan and began with enthusiasm and with the shouted instructions of our guide, changed to another, 1/2m tin pan that almost broke my back to lift (it didn't help that I was 8 months pregnant at the time). We shovelled in lots of gravel but weren't having much luck. I suggested another spot in the gully and moved towards it, but the ground, which looked solid enough, gave way to a swampy type of muddy quicksand and I quickly sunk up to my thighs. I yelled, huffed and puffed and Marion grabbed my hand and pulled me out. What tremendous strength that woman has in her arms!

We marked the spot with an X and looked up at our guide, who was standing on the top of the gully about 8m away. He shouted that we should pan under a small cliff face, where the minerals had not yet escaped and said he would go looking for another place to fossick. Marion scrambled down the small cliff (about 3m high) and landed at the bottom. I passed down a shovel and gold pan and all was going well for about 15mins. Then Marion went to move from her sitting position and found she was caught in the deepest patch of mud quicksand.

The hue and cry that followed was not enough to rouse our guide from his wanderings. Marion and I tried all sorts of aerobics to get her out, but the more she moved, the more leg she lost. It got to the point where her gumboots were sunk under the surface and Marion laughingly said 'if only we had a camera'. I replied that I did, and promptly took a photo. We were so worn out from struggling for almost an hour, that we burst into hysterical laughter and doubled over with the giggles. Unfortunately, Marion lost the gold pan and became buried up to the waist. I was starting to think I'd have to ring the Flying Doctors or someone to come and dig us out, when our guide returned and looked quite surprised to see us exasperated and Marion with mud on her glasses and hair while I enjoyed a cigarette at the top of the cliff. He shouted directions and we vainly attempted them only to wear out poor Marion further. In the end, she scaled the cliff face up the long handle of the shovel we had borrowed. Not bad for someone too weak to talk!

We limped away from the gully, muttering phrases like 'never again', and converged on a new spot which was only about 100m away from the gully, next to a lake. Our guide had found it while wandering. We took out pans and I proceeded to find tiny specks of gold (too miniscule to pick up) while Marion struggled to get mud and feet out of her gumboots. Still no sapphires. It looked like it was going to rain, and our guide wanted to get his car out of the (possible) mud, so we all took a turn at helping Marion get her gumboots off. After an hour of struggle, her feet finally emerged, minus a sock, and at the insistence of the guide we wiped our feet on plastic bags and grass so we could get into the car nice and clean.

It did rain. We got back to Marion's relative's place and I hosed out the gumboots and washed away the mud. Marion took a shower she was so coated.

We drove home in exhausted coversation and felt that the trip to Trentham really wasn't just about the gemstones after all - we had had a laugh and some fun. But we both agreed not to go again.