Agate Creek is a tributary of the Robertson River, which joins the Gilbert River eventually flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria. It rises on a small  tableland near the old gold camp of Percyville and flows north-westerly to join the Robertson river about 10 miles downstream from the latter’s confluence with the little Roberson river. The principal agate deposits occur within 7 miles of the head of Agate Creek. Access to the agate bearing area is by a fairly reasonable dirt road from Forsayth about 50 miles away. This is the only reasonable way in to Agate Creek and even at that, is mainly only passable in dry weather conditions due to the necessity to cross a number of small creeks and the Robertson river itself. There are two other ways in that are really only suitable for more robust 4x4 vehicles. Within this area defined in Australia as a “Fossicking Area” are a number of campsites. Some of these had been abandoned in the past including the Safari camp but others still provide facilities for campers. 

Geology

The occurrence of agate was first reported near Percyville in 1900. Further reference was made to the Agate Creek deposits in 1945 when an attempt was made to exploit the deposit commercially. Agate occurs in segregated amygdaloidal basalt lava flows of Carboniferous age. The total thickness of the basalt in the area probably exceeds 100 metres. They are interbedded with a flatly dipping series of silicified shales and sandstones whose fossils confirm the age as Permo-Carboniferous [about 245 mya]  Steeply inclined metamorphic rocks underlie the formation while a younger horizontal series of sandstones cover the older original basalt. These thick sandstone deposits were later laid down by a large inland sea covering the area. It is thought that subsequent leaching of silica from these sandstones later filled the amydales within the lava and set the stage for the formation of Agate Creek. [See Agate Formation]

The Agates

The amygdales of agate are commonly of an irregular oval shape ranging from less than half an inch to 6 inches or more along the long axis. Some very large stones have been found but the average size of the nice agates is about 2 inches. Many nodules are geodic in structure having an outer case of agate of variable thickness enclosing a cavity lined with quartz crystals, sometimes lined with amethyst.

Varieties of agates found in the Agate Creek area include pink and white agates, red-white-blue agates, red and blue agates and most interesting of all for a collector from Scotland green and yellow and green-yellow-blue agates. The latter variety with predominant green being very rare here in Scotland.

Trip to Agate Creek – 3rd to 10th June 2004

This was my first visit to Australia and I was lucky to spend most of the three weeks at Port Douglas on the coast just north of Cairns. This proved to be a good take-off point for the outback of northern Queensland. The day before we set off for Agate Creek we hired a 4x4 Britz campervan and stocked it up with enough food and water for a week in the outback. My friend Nick and I set off from Port Douglas on Thursday 3rd June initially heading west on tarred roads passing through Mareeba and Atherton in the tablelands.

As we headed west, the land changed and became drier and dustier and the vegetation less lush than nearer the coast. The road also changed into a wide gravel two lane track with enough room to pass the numerous enormous “road-trains” that would thunder past kicking up a massive dust cloud behind. As well as the scrubby vegetation near the road there were some enormous termite nests some up to 7-8 ft high. After 4-5 hours of driving on roads that were sometimes straight for 20-30 miles we arrived at the old mining town of Mount Surprise. We stopped here and filled our tank up with diesel and visited the small museum attached to the filling station. The display of Agate Creek agates belonging to the owner of the garage, Mr Wallace, was spectacular and spurred us on to crack on to Forsayth where we planned to spend our first night. We arrived at Forsayth about teatime and after having dinner in the Goldfields Hotel we settled down for the night at the local campsite.    

The next morning we were on our way early and by 10am we were at the Agate Creek sign at the entrance to the fossicking area. By 10.45am we had our first agate in the bag! We spent most of the first day “specking” in Agate Creek itself but we also headed up Black Soil Creek and were rewarded by a few bags of good agates. We then headed back to the campsite near the entrance and set up camp with about another eight campervans and tents.

The next morning we met a friendly Canadian couple, Gary and Barbara, who had been to Australia and Agate Creek quite a few times in the past. They indicated that they had been finding some nice agates further up the creek at a place opposite Simpson’s. Nick and I were invited to join them and we spent most of the day digging out some very good agates. Later that night round a campfire under the vast dark Australian sky we met Geoff Beikoff.

Geoff was a very keen collector from Brisbane who would come to Agate Creek and spend up to 2-3 months camping and collecting. The chat ranged from the world in general to stories of previous collecting trips. He also showed us some beautiful polished onyx agates that he had collected the previous year from Spring Creek. This whetted our appetite for a trip there!

Geoff was a mine of information regarding all things to do with Agate Creek including the best areas and the history. He was “endless”……a Scottish term!

The next day we did a bit more specking in Agate Creek and at Black Soil Creek. On this occasion we dug into the gravels in the dried up watercourses and did quite well with a good haul of agates. Met up during the day with some other “fossickers” who were able to trace their family history back to Scotland.

The next day Geoff took us to one of his digs at Spring Creek to look for the onyx agates. The lava at this point had a rotted clay-like consistency and we spent most of the day digging into this material and extracting a lot of potentially good nodules, some up to 4 inches across. As well as shifting a lot of overburden we also had to use a chain-jack to shift some car-sized boulders. A very hot day in the sun that necessitated drinking a lot of bottled water! Geoff took us to a number of other good collecting localities eventually arriving back at the camp about 6pm.

The next day we returned to the same place and moved more of the massive blocks and again found some nice nodules. On the way back we paid a quick visit to the old camp of Darcy Lamont. A rather desolate place with the detritus of a his life in the outback lying around including his burned out VW campervan. On the way back to the camp we headed up Bald Hill to collect some of the nice blue and red agates. From up here we got a beautiful view over the whole of the Agate Creek area as well as seeing evidence of the original Aboriginal peoples who lived her.

Later that day between about 4.30pm and 6pm we observed the transit of Venus across the sun and I was able to project the image on to a piece of white card using my small pair of binoculars.

The next day was our last full day at Agate Creek and Geoff took us to some other digs where we found some fantastic pink agates. Later we paid a visit to the old Safari Camp. This had been burned down in a fire several years ago and has not been reinstated but recently [2007] I have hard that it is now up and running again. Later that day we drove out of Agate Creek on our way back to Forsayth for the night in the campsite we had stayed at on our way in to Agate Creek.

We had had a great time and met some interesting characters and we headed down the road from Agate Creek with some fantastic memories and some fantastic agates.