On the Queens birthday long weekend 2008, Morwell club hosted a field trip to Valencia creek for some fossicking by all who were welcome to join. Essendon club was well represented on the weekend with 12 members travelling down the highway to Valencia Creek. Members included Gavin & Kerrie, Naomi & Lyn, Pat, Sue, Michael, Bec, Mary, Ryan, Arjit & his wife. Most of us arrived at the caravan park early on the Saturday morning after a very early wake up call (4.30am ) and set up our tents.

We all felt very welcomed by the members of the Morwell club who made sure we had everything we needed and waited for us to get set up before setting off for the first fossick for the day. Travelling in convoy (4 wheel drive) we set off with a few of the Essendon members hitching a ride with others to the Avon River where we where shown the characteristics of the agates that we were looking for in the dry river bed. Easy to spot they said - ha ha!

After lunch some of our members went back for more and stayed out there looking until it was dark making those who remained back at camp think they were searching by torch light or that they had taken a wrong turn on the way back, but no, they had the ingenious invention of the GPS which keep telling them to turn around and go back because the dirt roads they were on were not in it's data bank.

Most of us brought back a few buckets of samples with a lot of the old faithful jasper being picked up along the way as well.

Saturday night around the campfire was fun filled for all, with a damper making bake off and tasting competition - first prize being won by Arjit’s apple, sultana and marshmallow creation which really was no surprise to some after tasting the many entries with at least one taking over 2 hours to cook ( Kerrie and Mary’s entry). Strange how most of the other dampers only took 20 minutes to bake over the open fire…

After the damper cook off there was a raffle with numerous prizes that were donated by the Morwell club with all profits being put towards the cost of the delicious coffee, tea and crumpets they supplied for consumption at any time by all. It seemed to be Essendon’s weekend with the majority of the prizes being won amongst our members. A few of the attendees stayed up late tending to the fire just make sure it didn’t go out till the wee hours of the morning. Luckily, they had a couple of bottles of port to keep them company.

Sunday dawned and with a sluggish start we set off in convoy again to dig up the side of a mountain that reaped many quartz crystal points. Lunch was had and then we went on to chip away at a close by rock face of chirt and then to dig up thunder eggs. Our trip unfortunately ended at the chirt collection point as we need to make tracks back to Melbourne but others went on to collect loads of thunder eggs before also returning home.

The weekend was enjoyed by all and now that Arjit is required to defend his title as the Damper Man, Essendon will be back again next year for sure.

We all found something on the Valencia Fossicking Trip.




Thanks to Morwell Club for assisting the Essendon Club members.




Looking for quartz, chirt and thunder eggs.