Our Trip to the Vredendal Lime Quarry, October 2008.

A couple of weeks ago we had the pleasure of accompanying 26 other members of the Cape Town based mineralogical society to a  lime quarry just outside Vredendal , Western Cape, South Africa. This wonderful privilege was granted to the club who visits the mine twice a year for a weekend at a time. This was the fourth time we visited this mine and we have never been disappointed. On all the visits we found many lovely crystals. I must hasten to say that it is hard work! The hard dolomite rock faces have veins filled with soft yellow clay that yields an amazing mix of feldspar, dolomite, quartz, rutile and calcite crystals. The quartz crystals vary from a few milimeters to specimens weighing up to 5 kg. We found a few specimens between 2 and 4.2 kg. All the photographs below are from our last visit.


Pierre



I have just discovered an amazing pocket



The pocket extends for about 2 metres into solid rock

One of the bigger quartz clusters removed

A quartz group with lovely red rutile needles.

Riana with a lovely quartz crystal fresh from the earth

A flat floater crystal, one of many floaters

Fellow diggers, exploring old veins and empty pockets

Our campsite at the mine

A single crystal weighing 1.7 kg

Another flat crystal floater.

Smitty and John coming to terms with a new day.

Some members have a good health insurance.

Graham and sons found

an interesting pocket of rutilated quartz

A large crystal with a coating of iron oxide

A large floater quartz crystal group