René’s wife shares her story of fossicking at Agate Creek in the early 60’s. With a baby at camp and a tent filled with tinned food and hundreds of litres of water, Rene and Nelleke stayed until the water ran out.

Inspired by Queensland’s Year of Accessible Tourism 2023-2024 we jumped on board and made some changes including greater mobility support and wheelchair access along with a suite of interpretive resources for visitors who are neurodiverse, hearing, and vision impaired.

René is still a big kid at heart, but as an actual little kid, he spent a lot of time in the forests surrounding his house in Den Dolder in the province of Utrecht in the Netherlands.

René loves to tell the story of when he hit a big agate geode in Agate creek in the early sixties. The agate burst open and there were crystals inside. His passion was ignited.

Not many people’s CV includes tobacco grader, café owner, high pressure cleaner sales rep, tag-along tour operator, palm tree nursery owner and cave builder. René’s does, and this Indiana Jones character of Tropical North Queensland is the first to admit not all of his business ideas worked.

Ambient surroundings have always been important to René. The Dutch call it ‘gezelligheid’. It’s the stuff that makes you feel warm and fuzzy when you walk into someone’s home. You create it with light, sound, furnishings and even smell.

He is quite specific in his obsession with crystals, he’s not so much into rocks or gemstones, it’s the pointy bits that he loves. He specialises in crystalised mineral specimens.