THE CRYSTAL CAVES

G’day and welcome to René’s world. Founder, Rene Boissevain, designed and built these caves to encourage you to touch and engage with his private collection of over 600 crystals and fossils from all over the world.

This audio guided tour commences from the cave entrance. On average, a tour of our cave highlights takes around 45 minutes. However, this is a self-guided experience, and you’re welcome to explore at your own pace. Take time to touch, photograph and admire these amazing natural wonders.

Here we’ll highlight several key specimens spaced throughout The Crystal Caves. We have allowed space to move from one exhibit to the next but you are encouraged to play and pause this guide at your leisure. Specimen numbers and physical descriptions are provided to help you locate each exhibit.

As you explore the six chambers of The Crystal Caves, spare a thought for the clever tradesmen and women who built these caverns from Rene’s imagination. They used chicken mesh and hessian to sculpt the stalactites and stalagmites; fire retardant poly urethane foam to shape the walls and ceilings, and hundreds of square meters of carpet, none of it in a straight line. Some of the areas are tight, just like a real cave!

Also, consider the incredible patience of his wife Nelleke, who supported his crazy antics and managed the business end of things which enabled René’s imagination to create this reality.

You can touch anything that is within your reach. If you need a rest, feel free to sit on the many rocks throughout the museum. The music you hear was produced by Australia’s own ‘Kallidad’ featuring steel drums, Spanish guitar, sitar guitar and the didgeridoo.

You may now enter the cave via a slightly inclined ramp.

Directly, in front of you is a spectacular amethyst geode cut into slices that hangs from the ceiling, other specimens in this section include a blue celestite crystal cluster from Madagascar, natural pink cobalto calcite from India and malachite with Azurite from right here in Queensland.

Via a narrow corridor on the right, you will enter into the calcite cavern.

In the centre of this space, you’ll find a large pyrite crystal labelled as exhibit Number 34. This particular crystal was mined at an altitude of 1400 metres above sea level in central Peru. When Rene visited the mine, he struggled with the cold climate. When you touch pyrite you will notice the very smooth angles of the crystal but also that it is cold to touch. This is because it’s very dense in iron. So, yes, pyrite can rust. It comes in many crystalline structures, including perfectly cubed specimens from Spain and varieties mixed with quartz and other minerals in many parts of the world including Australia.

As you move towards the top of the ramp known as the Winding Walkway, you will notice that the ceiling is quite low, and you may need to duck your head a little. Handrails are provided for added stability. While you won’t be able to reach the crystals on your right as you go down the ramp, you can easily reach the smoky quartz and fluorite on your left.

As you approach the bottom of the ramp, you will find a massive quartz crystal ball, labelled as exhibit Number 61. It weighs 33 kilograms, but Rene built a dish for it so you can roll it around. This sphere is made from the point of a very large natural quartz crystal from Brazil. This crystal ball is mostly translucent in appearance.

The way to tell if a crystal ball is made from natural quartz is that the natural quartz will always feel cold, whereas a glass or lead glass crystal ball, like to ones the gypsies used for fortune telling, will maintain an ambient temperature. Take a moment to feel the cool, smooth surface of this quartz crystal ball.

Directly behind you is a large Brazilian agate geode cut into three pieces.

Due to its hardness of 7, it is a popular stone to cut and polish to reveal the beautiful bands or colour. Only Topaz, corundums like sapphire, emerald and ruby or of course, diamonds are harder than agate.

Once you come off the ramped Winding Walkway onto solid ground, the fossil gallery will be to your left.

But straight ahead, tucked under the ramp is a selenite formation known as desert rose.

This large flower like structure is a combination of gypsum and sand that forms when water evaporates, and gypsum is left behind.

Desert roses form all over the world in arid desert landscapes including Australia, but this one comes from the Sonora desert in Mexico. The petals feel like sandpaper. Gypsum has a hardness of 1 so it is very soft. If you were to put this flower into water, it may start to break down.

As you wander along the Fossil Gallery wall, pay particular attention to exhibit Number 75 – a giant trilobite fossil.

Typically, trilobites are between 3 and 6 centimetres long, but this massive specimen from the Sahara Desert in southern Morocco is a whopping 40 centimetres in diameter.

These ancient hard-shelled, segmented creatures lived and flourished between 500 and 250 million years ago in the Earth's ancient seas. There are many different types of trilobites and in North Africa, palaeontologists are still discovering new species.

The trilobites were among the most successful of all early animals, roaming the oceans for over 250 million years. Trilobites had many lifestyles; some moved over the seabed as predators, scavengers or filter feeders and some swam, feeding on plankton. The very last trilobites appear to have died out completely about 250 million years ago, but their closest living relative is the horseshoe crab, which is not a true crab at all, but an arthropod like the trilobite.

At the end of the fossil gallery wall, you enter the fluorescent light section.You might want to turn your headlamp off to get the full effect of the fluorescent minerals which glow bright colours under long wave ultraviolet black light. The white light will change to black automatically and back again after a few seconds.

There are very few minerals that change from grey, dull looking ‘rocks’ into these spectacular fluorescent colours. This collection is mostly from the Franklin-Sterling Hill area in New Jersey which has more fluorescent minerals than anywhere else on Earth. This is one of the best fluorescent mineral collections in Australia.

The large dome in the corner is inlaid with over a hundred Agate slices, many of them cut from the same stone. Rene engaged a highly creative and patient Dane from Kuranda, coincidently also called René, to select and inlay the slices. If you can crawl into the dome, the ceiling is over 2 meters high, so you should be able to stand up in it. Or feel free to lie down in here and enjoy a quiet moment of reflection as you appreciate the combined craftsmanship of man and artistry of nature.

Rene’s passion for crystals started when he first found Australian agates in the early sixties. These particular slices however, are made from Brazilian agate. They are backlit, so they show the distinct and unique banding patterns in a variety of colours

Once you turn the corner, you will get your first glimpse the massive amethyst geode. This magnificent, deep royal purple geode stands over three meters tall and sits in a rose quartz crystal brook shimmering in shades of pink. The timber deck is built in such a way that you can touch, the geode gently on the left-hand side, or you can sit on the timber bench and just admire natures breathtaking creation.

Amethyst belongs to the Quartz family. Interestingly, it derives its name from the Greek amethystos – meaning ‘not drunken’, as it was thought to ward off drunkenness.

Rene fell in love with this spectacular amethyst specimen the minute it was offered to him in 2007 by a Uruguayan supplier called Carlos. At the time it was the largest geode that Carlos had ever found, weighing a staggering 2.5 tonne. Being a long-time customer and friend, Rene was the first person that he offered it to. Even though the cost of the specimen was 120,000 dollars, Rene could not pass it up. It took 3 months to excavate this beauty out of solid basalt. When the custom-made crate arrived, the roof of the building had to come off to lower it in with a crane.

At the back of the cavern, you can sit on a large rose quartz boulder while admiring the amethyst geode. The soothing sound of the water trickling over the rose quartz water feature at the base of the amethyst enhances the illusion of sitting beside a subterranean stream. This is a peaceful, almost magical place to sit and ponder the creative power of time, or simply to imagine the dreaming and sheer determination that got this giant specimen halfway across the world and into this building for your enjoyment.

When you leave the amethyst behind, you will pass through a narrow space aptly called ‘split rock’ and into a mesmerising cavern called ‘the fairytale.’

On your right, there is a large rock that looks a little like a lump of melting ice. It is in fact a selenite formation sourced from southern Brazil, and it’s not cold at all. Selenite belongs to the gypsum family. It is the softest of all gemstones. With a hardness of 1, you can scratch it with a fingernail. You will notice that it is very smooth. This is because thousands of people have touched it, smoothing out the rough edges. This unusually large selenite formation was once crystallised, but underground running water has naturally polished the surface. Feel free to sit on it and have your picture taken.

Opposite the selenite boulder at number #87 is a large quartz cluster. This particular specimen is from Arkansas, USA, which is known for the best quality quartz crystals in the world. Quartz itself is quite common. Intriguingly, it is the major component of beach sand. But it is this crystalised version of quartz which generates value. Each terminated point will always have six sides, though not always equal in size. The edges and point must be completely undamaged to hold its value. The crystal will increase in value if it is clear, though many have inclusions, fractures and flaws. We love flaws and we don’t consider them to be a defect but rather an added special feature that makes each piece unique.

Crystals have a reputation for having metaphysical capabilities and quartz is one of the must-haves if you are interested in exploring this realm. We know that quartz generates energy and vibrates at a precise frequency. It is a tiny piece of quartz in your quartz watch that regulates timekeeping. There is a growing belief that we can harness that energy for healing. Regardless of your belief, we can all agree that quartz in its crystalised form is one of the most dazzling in all the crystal kingdom.

As you leave the fairytale cavern, there is a slight decline down into the Grand Grotto. This space was the original cave that Rene built in 1987. Then, it was one room with a staircase down and back up.

If you veer to your right on entry into the Grand Grotto, you’ll discover the Glasshouse collection, which (as the name suggests) has more than one hundred delicate specimens in a glass showcase.

If you veer left on entry into the Grand Grotto you will enter a space where you are encouraged to pick up and learn more about various specimens.

Brilliant highlights include the lower jawbone of a woolly mammoth, a petrified wood stump from Arizona USA, one of the largest quartz crystal formations in Australia.

It doesn’t matter which way you choose at this point because both directions come together in the Magic Spheres.

Beyond the Glasshouse collection or at the far end of the Grand Grotto, you enter through black curtains into an unearthly realm of glow-in-the-dark wonder. Please turn your lamp off to enjoy the full effect.

Black light luminates a collection of twenty ‘Magic Spheres’ in a stunning array of bright colours. Suspended on slow moving arms, the display is reminiscent of a planetary orbit. These glowing spheres were carved from fluorescent mineral gemstone materials by local lapidarian Bill Ralph. The biggest one in the middle weighs a staggering 34 kilograms! The music in this one section is deep and rumbly, and the entire effect suggests the creation of planets.

Before you ascend out of The Crystal Caves via an exit tunnel and 12 steps, make sure you check out exhibit Number 215.

This is the 49-kilogram agate nodule that Rene found in the early 1960’s at Agate Creek, a popular fossicking site in Outback North Queensland. His interest and passion for collecting crystals and fossils was ignited by this discovery. Everything you have experienced here today – The Crystal Caves themselves and all the treasures within – reflect the dreams and determination born of that first find. Rene and his wife Nelleke made many trips to Agate Creek with their three daughters in the ensuing years, and they still have some of the original agates that they collected then. Rene has also travelled the world in pursuit of his passion and is proud to present his precious finds for your enjoyment.

We have outlined several specimens here for you, but please remember that you are encouraged to spend as much time as you like in the museum. Feel free to go back and explore any section that you feel you would like to spend more time in. If you have any questions that we have not answered in this guide, feel free to ask our friendly and knowledgeable staff once you surface.

We trust that you’ve enjoyed your audio guided tour of the secret treasures of The Crystal Caves.