HI Benny,
I shop there all the time, its a top business and an asset to Queenstown. The lady, Geraldine? is wonderful.
Friday is great for me too. I wont be able to spend all day up there because i have a back fence to put up at home, weather depending (the timber arrived today) and a couple of cars to service. but will defiantly be able to get several hours in the morning if thats okay. Perhaps meet at Moina shop at 8am or 9am? or what ever suits you? Its forecast to rain, snow and windy, so perhaps even see what the weather looks like closer to the day.. we may need to go up another day. Regardless, i will send you the cords so you can go at your own leisure. If it looks like the weather is clearing in the afternoon im happy to go up then too.
The rainbow area is an exposed quartz blow like down at Melba Flats and from all the topaz on quartz images i just looked at. Gemmy Topaz seems to like to grow on smokey quartz! Its a few hundred meters away in a straight line from the topaz in the quarry and interestingly,, when it was blasted, it exposed a fault on the right hand side of the quarry with a green tinge to it.. the same as the now blown to bits topaz area. This area is on the same side of the green stone fault so we may be able to get some pretty outstanding specimens.
all the other indicators for gem topaz, pegmatites, Tourmaline, Cassiterite, Flourite, Muscovite, smokey quartz. etc etc are all present in the immediate area.
Topaz-Quartz-139954.jpg
image source: Creative commons images http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... 139954.jpg
Topaz-Quartz-Schorl-240582.jpg
image source: Creative commons images http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... 40582.jpg
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