The good folk at Richmond also offer a dig site just out of town where one can fossick for their own fossils and we duly went out there to dig – none more determined to do so than our Maurs. She was made to fossick! She has the necessary determination and the patience to sit and fiddle and prod and poke until the fossil eventually surrenders to her. The rest of us adopted the search policy of whacking a rock twice with a hammer and if a perfectly framed fossil didn’t appear, move on and whack another rock. As it turns out, Maurs’ tactics proved the most effective.
While the rest of us fossicked in the rocks that others before us must surely have rejected, Maurs spotted a pile of rocks that had just been bulldozed by workmen gathering road fill. She eventually found pay dirt (although we didn’t quite recognise what it was) but she had to withdraw when the workmen came back and started loading the trucks. They left but the dozer driver kept puttering around, preventing Maurs from pursuing her find. And that got her mad! That driver was lucky he didn’t get a screwdriver embedded in his back tyre. As it was, she woke up cursing him for two nights in a row after our expedition.
What Maurs had found was sections of the jaw of an Ichthyosaurus (according to the people at the fossil centre) plus a couple of vertebrae. If she had have been able to get back to that pile of rocks she might have extracted the entire saurus. That driver doesn’t know how lucky he was!
The rest of us did not come away empty handed. My sister Mal showed me a promising rock she had collected. I said, “That just needs to be cleared away a bit,” at which point she started bashing it with her hammer. “NOT WITH A HAMMER!” I said, “With a small brush!” “Well, if you’re going to get cranky,” she said, and walked off.
We then travelled through some pretty ordinary countryside to arrive at Charters Towers – a town that holds a lot of significance for our family. Charlies Trousers (as it is known) was the birthplace of our mum. Our grandfather Herbert Forsdike was the ambulance superintendant there but died of a disease that he contracted in 1919, leaving his wife Sophie with four kids and no income (our mother was nine months old). That was the start of a rather harsh episode for Sophie. Herbert was buried in an unmarked grave, which we managed to find along with another baby Forsdike who only lived 16 days – we didn’t even know about him. At the old ambulance centre, we found his last hand-written entry in the station’s daily log in April 1919 and then a rather poignant entry in May indicating that the staff had taken time off to attend Superintendant Forsdike’s funeral. Mal has been right into compiling the family history so she came away with a lot more material. We both came away a little bit closer to our maternal grandfather, whom we never had the chance to meet.
Next stop – the Foley kids birthplace – Townsville.
Been right up & around that area it's fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI'd have been right behind with an ice pick Maurs ( I always carry one for emergencies) he he.what a pity the fossicking was cut short. We know how much you love it! Where are all those rocks collected on you 40th birthday trip?? Take Care. Shirl & Kev