The sign on the chalkboard next to the pool table was clear: "No name, no game."
We'd arrived in the Gemfields in central Queensland just a few hours earlier and, after a quick reccy for the following day of filming, retreated to Rubyvale's pub for a meal.
I don't mind a game of pool, so I added my name to the list and sized up my opponent – a middle-aged woman who twirled a pink pool cue menacingly between long fingernails painted in the same fluorescent colour.
She told me to call her Chonny. I was immediately intimidated.
Needless to say, the game was over quickly, and the loser – me – had to buy the next round.
When Chontelle "Chonny" Penfold isn't hustling the pool table, she's hunting for sapphires on her block of land about 10 minutes out of town.
During Queensland's more temperate winter months, she and her husband drive from their home on the New South Wales southern coast to try their luck fossicking.
The new age of gem hunters
About an hour west of Emerald, small towns like Rubyvale and Sapphire are part of one of the world's largest sapphire-bearing regions.
Back in the old days, the 900-square-kilometre area was like the Wild West, with guns drawn and threats against trespassers taken seriously.
Chonny promises me it's a lot calmer these days.
She is among a new age of gem hunters like Matt Betteridge.
Young and ambitious, Matt came to visit the region in 2012 and ended up staying.
Matt's famous for scratching at some hard soil one day and unearthing an 834-carat gem, estimated to be worth about $12,000.
He uploaded it to TikTok, and his discovery went viral.
Matt's wife Amber Betteridge – with a name that seems almost too perfect to be true – brings Matt's rough gems to life using the machine that belonged to her grandfather and they then sell them online.
Matt took me back to the spot where he found his big gem, telling me it could easily be my lucky day.
But the best specimen I found was a type of rock Matt called "leaverite", which he quickly explained meant it was nothing special.
"That looks like a nice piece of Leav-er-rite," he laughed.
"As in, leave 'er right where you found it."
Debbie Wouters is also a newcomer who arrived from Gippsland, Victoria, in 2022.
She and her husband Steve packed up their lives and headed north after Debbie went through a life-changing illness.
Now, she spends her life underground and is already running the local lapidary club where gem hunters gather to trade tips.
"I can stay down here for about four hours at a time," Debbie tells me after we've descended 14 metres down the lift into her mine.
"It's quite comfortable because it's too hot upstairs."
Unearthing your own gem
If you want to try your hand at gem hunting, get yourself a pick and a sieve.
No machinery is permitted and you'll need a fossicking licence.
Then head to one of the Gemfields' designated recreational fossicking areas to prospect or speck.
You can walk along and kick over old mounds of dumped soil, or you can dig down and find the gravel layer known as "wash".
Either way, put that soil or gravel through your sieve and see if something shows up.
You're looking for a rock that looks like glass.
Debbie and Steve say if it winks at you, don't take your eye off it because it will disappear as quickly as you find it.
Stepping up your gem game
If you catch gemstone fever, you can buy a surface claim that allows you to use your pick to dig down to about 2m.
And if you want to get really serious, you can buy a mining claim that allows you to go deep underground and use a jackhammer to dig away at the rock.
These claims can set you back between $5,000 and $100,000.
The price difference depends on the amount of untouched ground there is, whether it's a surface or underground claim, and how valuable the machinery or shelters on top are.
But what happened to Chonny?
On my final night in Rubyvale, I challenged Chonny to another round of pool.
Her husband Graeme shook his head at my hopefulness and offered a lure.
"If you can beat her, I'll give you a couple of sapphires," he said.
Maybe Chonny was feeling sorry for me, or just maybe I was having a good night, but I walked out of that pub with a small plastic bag containing a couple of small, rough gems and a smile on my face.
It seems you can strike it lucky in the Gemfields.
Watch more in the latest episode of Back Roads on Tuesday, February 20 at 8:00pm on ABC TV or stream any time on ABC iview.