They are all members of the Batemans Bay Lapidary Club, and they love finding, identifying, studying, cutting, polishing and sometimes making things out of gemstones.

Mr Butcher worked in the mineral exploration industry for 20 years, finishing in 1997. This dug up his inner lapidarist, while Mr Hapgood founded the Batemans Bay club in the early 1980s.

“I went away for a couple of months’ holiday with friends and we found some gemstones,” he recalled.

“I’ve been into them ever since.”

He has taken his family on many fossicking trips over the years, even when his children were young.

“We loved everything about those trips; we loved being in the outdoors,” he said.

For Mr Butcher, the biggest thrill in lapidary is the journey rather than the destination.

“It’s looking for and finding a great mineral specimen for the cabinet,” he said.

“I love being out there, exploring new country and fossicking with like-minded people.”

Between the three of them, they have been to every state in Australia, and especially enjoy finding agate, a stunning cryptocrystalline variety of silica, from north Queensland.

It is Mr Hapgood’s favourite stone.

“It is beautiful and it is different,” he said.

Mrs Hapgood prefers topaz and opal.

They also enjoy fossicking at places such as Tuena, between Bathurst and Crookwell, and Inverell.

They say the Eurobodalla is not a lapidarist’s paradise, but you can find nice serpentine rocks on the Clyde Mountain, and there are also good finds on offer at Bodalla.

“We are not particularly well-endowed here, you need to be prepared to travel,” Mr Butcher said.

Mr Hapgood enjoys the lapidary process itself, of finding a rock and turning it into a gem.

“Cutting, grinding, sanding, polishing; working with a with a diamond saw,” he said.

“There are courses you can do now but I’m self-taught.”

He makes jewellery, scent bottles and other items out of the gems he finds.

The Batemans Bay Lapidary Club gets between 25 and 30 people to each of its monthly meetings.