Ward Beach is about six kilometres off the main road east from the small village of Ward in Marlborough. Ward is 82 kilometres north of Kaikoura and 45 kilometres south of Blenheim. I often stay at the Flaxbourne Motel in Ward on my fossicking trips to Southland as it is about an hour’s drive from the Picton ferry. However, it was not until August 2020 that I took the side trip to Ward Beach. In her book “The New Zealand Rockhound” (1981), Natalie Fernandez notes on page 113 that “flint, jasper, agate and fossil sponge” can be found here. I particularly look for stones of fine-grained limestone with zoophycos (trace fossils) which look quite soft so I haven’t tried to tumble polish them. In fact, I have not tumbled any Ward Beach stones to date, mainly because I have been focusing on stones from other beaches.
Ward Beach is set among spectacular scenery – high hills with steep slopes and a coastline with interesting rock formations. Driving from Ward to Ward Beach, there is a railway crossing with no bells/lights, a couple of one-way bridges, and a cattle-stop which you need to drive over very slowly.
The last two kilometres out to the beach is on gravel road through a small valley, with the Flaxbourne River alongside. The river reaches the coast just south of the carpark. The 368 metres high Weld Cone dominates the landscape to the south. The Ward Beach boulders (dolomite concretions that are 65 million years old) are 800 metres north of the carpark, maybe 10 minutes’ walk away. The beach was uplifted about two and a half metres by the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake, unveiling the boulders. See here for a good introduction to Ward Beach on the RV Explorer website, and here for a YouTube video of Ward Beach by a caravanner on holiday there. A YouTube video with drone footage of Ward Beach is here.
The main features of Ward Beach to the north of the Flaxbourne River are indicated on the map above (far left). Up behind the carpark is the Chancet Park overnight parking area, set up for members of the NZ Motor Caravanners Association, but also available to anyone with a self-contained van. A public toilet is also behind the carpark. The Flaxbourne River mouth is to the south of the carpark (see photos below) – I have fossicked up the river a way, there being stones on the riverbed and along the margins. North of the mouth is the main beach, in front of the carpark, another good place for fossicking. At low tide, the beach can be partly sandy, the stones mainly being higher up. The slope here can be steep, and powerful incoming waves can be dangerous.
Just north of here is a stretch dominated by rock platforms, though some small pockets of stones exist. The Ward Beach boulders are about halfway along this rocky part of the shore.
Beyond that, there is a sweeping stretch of beach that is sandy and stony, with the stones mainly at or above the high tide line (see photo above, lower row, second from left). A lot of the stones are quite small. After a small bay, some rocks run out from the shore, home to a fur seal colony. Just a few metres from here are the Chancet Rocks, a limestone outcrop. This area is a scientific reserve.
The Ward Beach page on Marlborough Online highlights the significance of the reserve: Following the 2016 Kaikōura earthquake, significant uplift of 2.2–2.6m occurred at Ward Beach exposing sedimentary rocks from the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-T) boundary, approximately 66 million years ago, when a major mass extinction event occurred, ending the age of dinosaurs. The K-T boundary is a thin layer of dark grey clay in sedimentary rocks with a highly elevated level to normal of the rare element iridium, caused by a massive meteorite impact that left global fallout. The best place to observe the K-T boundary is about a kilometre north of Ward Beach at the Chancet Rocks reserve.
The beach to the south of the Flaxbourne River can be accessed only by fording the river. In summer, this is usually not a problem but it can be impossible after winter rainfall.
Initially, the pebbly beach just to the south of the river contains a lot of rocks on the seaward side, with pockets of stones sometimes lying in-between the rocks. Walking further, jagged outcrops of limestone thrust up through the sand and pebbles. Three kilometres along a long sweeping beach is Needles Point. The Needles are a spectacular coastal limestone outcrop, a bit like Chancet Rocks to the north.
Other TumbleStoneTwo Page on Ward Beach:
WARD BEACH: MY STONE FOSSICKING
HOME – ABOUT ME – FOSSICKING BEACHES – BEACH STONES – TUMBLE-POLISHING
Mate…I like your style,informative an such a visible feast….when in town next do drop a line…you’d be amazed at what’s happening now….one rock hounds to another.