Miner's cottage in Emerald

Fantastic place. Found some good sapphires and the staff were really friendly

We loved this place so much that we drove 6 hours again after our trip to come back for a second visit.

Great time here. Staff really helpful, $25 gets you a bag of wash and scones and coffee. This is the first place you need to go when in rubyvale/sapphire area.

Loved our visit. Very well looked after.

Had a great time here every time I visited staff were very helpful not to mention the great scones and coffee

Had a great experience fossicking here. Would come back here again. There was a leaderboard of the biggest stones found in the last month which was cool. I didnt find much, but we had lots of fun

We had a fun morning fossiking. Very friendly and very helpful staff. 🙂

It was fun. Got lots of very small gemstones. Sapphire s and zircons

Lots of fun

Excellent experience, great crew

Best place to look for gems with fab staff and the yummiest scones. Can see why so many people keep coming back.

An excellent way to learn about Sapphires and other gems. The staff were wonderful and knowledgeable. Make sure you take a hat, and if you easily get sunburnt, wear a shirt with long sleeves and a collar.

Good few hours spent learning how to find sparkly rocks, great scones for morning tea.

Excellent, friendly and helpful staff. Great day.

One of the best attractions at Rubyvale.Good wash and friendly, helpful people to assist you in finding a beautiful crystal.Love going there…..

We had a fabulous day today fossicking for sapphires at The Miners Cottage with the amazing Owner, Gae and her staff Mandy and Geoff ( I hope I got their names correctThey made us feel welcome from the minute we got there, even had coffee and scones, with jam and cream for morning tea. The pictures attached show the process we went through to get the gems. It turns out we found some amazing gems. FYI, Gae has a contract with a mining company, to supply wash, which has not been tampered with. She locates the area where they will dig, watches them dig and load the truck then follows them back to where it is dumped. The buckets for fossicking are then filled by her. For only $25 per bucket, this is truly an amazing experience

Such a wonderful place that keeps me going back. Gae loves to help everyone & share her knowledge. I love the tea and scones with jam/cream, and they make my visits even more special. I plan to keep coming back.

Great wash. An amazing proprietor. Best scones in town.

The man who yells at you to stand Right there, them berates you for coming and criticises your state. Then, despite it clearly stated on the brochure that coffee or tea is served, tells you you have to buy a bag of stones from him first. Hes cracked. We left, went elsewhere.

A great place to learn about gems and do some fossicking.Friendly, helpful and knowledgeable staff.

Awesome place. Friendly people and a great atmosphere to chill and go gem fossicking.Thank you for a lovely experience.😁👍👍

What a great day we just had fossicking today. Welcomed in and shown the ropes with knowledge and humour. Provided with coffee and scones along the way. Even found a good size sapphire, with help. These people love what they do and it shows. Totally recommend.

This was a great experience looking for gems in a very educational and well prepared workshop. The staff are very friendly and knowledgeable of the process and only to keen to share theire knowledge. A absolute great experience

Great experience, lovely morning tea provided & plenty of friendly help.

Great place for fossicking, great explanations on how to do it and the bonus of a scone with jam and cream and tea and coffee.. they grade your gems at the end too which is great

Wonderful people who are happy to take the time to explain the process to us novices. They have good quality wash to search through. I even got a cuppa and scone. This is a good starting point for beginners and families.

Miners Cottage offers such GREAT VALUE in this experience! You will not be disappointed! It’s a small business, which offer a unique personal experience rather than a commercial one. The perfect choice for first time fossickers, you will learn all you need to know as a beginner fossicker. Price includes coffee and scones with jam and cream. Also (and this is the best part), the staff with sort through your gem finds and offer their expertise and advice on which are the best to have cut and polished and which a better for “show and tell” , I was so surprised at the time and care given to us during sorting and explaining our little gem finds. Such great value! Thank you for your care and passionate energy, it added to experience

Friendly and knowledgeable staff made our first fossicking experience a real blast. The coffee and scones were also a welcome intermission whilst finding our precious bounty.

Great is the nicest lady and so are Gary and his wife ( sorry I forgot your name they welcome you and show you how to find the sapphires and zircon and also grade them fie you. Gae makes the Best scones. Great value for $25.

What a wonderful experience at Miners Cottage Rubyvale. Gay showed us everything we needed in order to find sapphires. The buckets of wash come straight from a mine, chosen by her to ensure the best fossicking results. We found some significant sapphires in our first bucket including a cuttable 7.65 carat Green one. Delightful morning and we will be back on Monday for more. All in all we found 6 cuttable sapphires, one large polishable blue one, 6 cuttable zircons and about 100 small sapphires and sapphire chips.

Spent a few days with Gaye, Gary and Mandy and had an amazing time! Thanks for the tips, training and scones! Very professional and tidy establishment.

Great place loved the free scones tea and coffee we had awesome staff and great place to find gems we found a 30 carrot and 50 carrot sapphire

Our stay in Gays Miners Cottage accomodation and our gem fossicking experience with her was the highlight of our trip to central and western QLD.

Always successful with the sapphire fossicking and always helpful staff at the miners cottage, coffee and scones topped with cream and raspberry jam are a bonus.

Great value for money and we found a lot of good coloured Sapphires and Zircons. Scones jam and cream with a culpa included in the bucket price. An interesting and authentic experience. Thank you so much to the lovely workers and Gae.

Very Friendly and even found a couple of small cutters in the wash. Others did better.

I had 4 hours of fun for low cost ...found some sapphires worth polishing and cutting so I was very happy ...The staff were very helpful and the music was a delight... coffee and scone with jam and cream went down a treat ....next time I want to get on the brag board lol

Great place to go underground and see the sapphire and zircon mining. Really informative !!

Bloody good time had found Gems, best coffee and scones definitely come again staff so helpful and friendly as well as our puppy was allowed.

What a fantastic place to learn how to fossic the owners were so helpful and what a wonderful touch scone jam and cream coffee or tea free. $20.for a bag to fossick through.they will then check what you find for you . If in the area please visit morning well spent.

Very rustic and a fun experience - found quite a few sapphires!! The owners were knowledgeable and welcoming, and provided great snacks! Would visit again.

Gae meets you and greets you. The buckets are fair as they have not gont through wash. Plus a lovely coffee and scones with jam and cream

Had a lovely morning!A bucket of "wash" to sort through with coffee & scones for $20- this was for the two of us. Took us both over 2hrs to go through the one bucket and ended up finding some small cutable sapphires!Id suggest go at 9am when they open also to take a hat and wear sun safe clothes. Need to be in the open sun to see the stones gleam but its very hot on any exposed skin. There are chairs and tables in the shade to have a break.Really helpful and friendly people working there. All were able to help us sort through what was quartz and what was sapphire with their expert eyes.

Miners cottage is a wonderful place to visit if you want to learn how to find some sapphires with a cuppa and scones while your going through your dirt and find some colourful gems and everyone will go home with something to show there friends and family. Kid and dog friendly on a leash .

Lovely owners.Found some great gems fossicking.Best value bucket fossik in town

Joy way was absolute joy to learn from. The wash was rich with Sapphires and she knew her stuff.It cost $15 for a bag and comes with tea and scones.

If you want to learn the skill of fossicking for sapphires then this is the place to go in Rubyvale. Its a professional operation that always produces the goods. Serves great scones as well!

Staff - friendly - patient ( we had four grand children with us and knowledgeable . A Great Experience . Appreciated the scones and coffee . Will return with other grandies . Cheers .

The Miners Cottage is a great way to learn about sapphires, what to look for, their variety of colour & to meet other like minded fossickers. Added to that the coffee, scones jam & cream that is included with your bucket of wash is very welcome. On top ofall that , Gae is just so welcoming and helpful.A brilliant experience.

Great service. The staff were very helpful and spent time going through our find to make sure we didnt miss anything. Took home some really nice sapphires.