On holidays from Victoria, Cindy Kelly "fell in love" with central Queensland's Gemfields — so she stayed.
The region covers almost 900 square kilometres and is one of the largest sapphire-bearing areas in the world.
"When I first came out here, we would be selling sapphires for $100 a carat. That was the price, one dollar a point," she said.
"In the last five or six years, those same sapphires are now selling for around $1,000 a carat."
But what is behind the growing interest and appreciation of Australian sapphires?
Social media marketing
Uniting her passion for geology and desire for a peaceful lifestyle, Ms Kelly made The Gemfields her home 25 years ago.
"I needed a job, so I learned how to facet," she said.
The gem cutter never thought she would see prices in the industry soar tenfold after struggling to sell sapphires in her early days.
"That was quite difficult, and the prices were very, very low," she said.
Running her business through social media and learning how to take quality photos and videos has helped Ms Kelly reach new buyers.
"That's really developed the appreciation of our Australian sapphires, we can get them out to Australian jewellers and they can highlight them in their beautiful jewellery," she said.
Ethical gemstones
With more people interested in responsibly sourced gems, selling the origin story is important.
"Where it came from, who found it, who cut it, that really makes the stone appreciated rather than just walking into a generic jewellery store," Ms Kelly said.
"Here, people are using hand tools mainly or just specking. They're just walking around picking them up off the ground.
"You can't get much more ethical than that."
Ms Kelly said sourcing rough sapphires to cut was challenging "because they're rarer than diamonds".
She purchases mostly from friends that go specking or from small-scale miners on their local claims.
Ms Kelly said soaring interest in Australian sapphires had benefits for the broader region.
"It's allowed a lot more people to gain employment in the sapphire industry and more people to get out and be independent miners or cutters," she said.
African export ban sees local boom
Sapphire mining is in Ray Richardson's blood.
His great-grandfather was a railway surveyor in the late 1880s and was the first person to find sapphires in Retreat Creek, paving the way for The Gemfields' industry.
Mr Richardson mines and exports sapphires commercially on his open-cut operation, washing up to 700 cubic metres of dirt daily.
He said demand had recently "doubled".
"They've stopped the export of rough sapphires out of Africa and that was one of the main suppliers of Thailand, so now the demand for ours is huge," Mr Richardson said.
He said new rules meant some countries had to process and cut their jewels before export, meaning Thai buyers could not buy rough stones.
"The [Thai buyers] have been coming here now since the 70s, buying probably 90 per cent of what's produced so we still sell there because it is the [coloured gemstone] capital of the world," he said.
"Everyone takes their stones ... [to be] cut in Thailand mainly because of the cost, and some of the world's best cutters are in Thailand."
Lynda Lawson from the University of Queensland's Sustainable Minerals Institute said she believed the pandemic had influenced the industry, as well as export bans and increased international marketing.
She said Tanzania had banned rough sapphires over a certain calibre being exported, while Madagascar stopped all exports of precious gemstones about a year ago, while the country redefined its mining codes.
"Around the time of lockdown of COVID in Australia, they were doing lockdowns in Madagascar and they prevented foreign traders from coming in, this was even before they put this [export] stop," Dr Lawson said.
"I think that without the Malagasy stones coming onto the market there would be a shortage of supply for certain gemstones."
Dazzling tourism industry
The demand has seen national and international tourists flock to The Gemfields for its annual gem festival, according to Sapphire Caravan Park owner Victoria Bentham.
Ms Bentham said the park was booked out "for quite a few months" in advance for the annual event, which returned in August for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
"I've been turning a lot more people away than I've been booking in, we're just bursting at the seams," she said.
"I've already got some bookings for The Gemfields festival next year, it just opens up the community and showcases a beautiful part of the world."
Visitors can fossick in and around the accommodation area.
"We had one of our guests find a 355-carat zircon about 20 metres outside the park a few weeks ago," Ms Bentham said.
"Once that gets out and about, people get gem fever, and there's people down there digging every day now trying to find their special little gemstone that they can take home."
