Gems of towns - Sapphire, Rubyvale and Emerald

Sapphire and Rubyvale are near Emerald, which isn't named after the gemstone. The other 2 places are!
How could I bypass gemstone towns?

Everything in Sapphire and Rubyvale is to do with sapphire mining.
The sapphires are gorgeous.
There was some exquisite sapphire jewellery, but not at pensioners prices unfortunately!

These are not pretty places.
People have to make do with the building materials available - a lot of the places are made form the local rock boulders.
Some are made from....whatever....bits of tin, mis-matched windows....oil barrels....
The landscape is more of a moonscape.

You can set yourself up to fossick for a day or more or you can buy a bag of rocks and try your luck.
We didn't.
You can also can pretty much anywhere in the common land.
We didn't either.
We stayed at the very well-appointed Sapphire Caravan Park, which has one of the best camp kitchens I have ever seen!