I had heard about people fossicking on Timaru beaches, and Patiti Point had been mentioned. I couldn’t find any reference to Timaru in any of the few sources I had about fossicking in New Zealand. So in June 2020, when passing through Timaru, I set out to find the Patiti Point beach and take a look for myself. A short fossick turned up a few interesting stones but I felt they were few and far between and not always as smooth as I would have preferred (see Day 21 in this Post). Over the following year I saw some Posts of interesting Timaru area stones on the Facebook Group “New Zealand Lapidary, Rocks, Minerals, Fossils”, and someone mentioned Scarborough Road beach. I made my first visit to that area, a kilometre or so to the south of Patiti Point, on 5 June 2021, and found some stones that I really liked. Among the quartzites to be found here are some really nice green ones. Among the jaspers are some gorgeous hematites, and I have also found petrified wood. So far (up until February 2025), I have visited that Timaru South stretch of beach ten times. Note that beaches often change with each tide so some of the details of the beach and its stones in the description below may no longer be the same.
What I call Timaru South is a stretch of stony beach that starts near Redruth Park, just under one kilometre south of Patiti Point, and runs southwards a further four and a half kilometres or so, past the Jack’s Point lighthouse to the Ellis Road Beach carpark (see the two maps below left).
Along the northern part of this beach, from just south of Timaru to Mutu Mutu Point, the waves require significant alertness on the part of the fossicker as they break closer to shore than at the other beaches I tend to visit. There is little time between the sound of the breaking wave and its swift movement up the beach, because of the steep (if short) slope. Fossickers focus visually on stones, keeping an ear out for waves, and we often walk along the waves’ edge, making us vulnerable to wet legs from late breaking waves. Another safety issue relates to the cliffs along the back of much of the beach. These cliffs are steep, slippery and too high to climb should the high tide press a fossicker against them. It is best to avoid high tide for most of the southern three-quarters of the beach.
The most northern part of the Timaru South beach can be accessed from where Scarborough Road meets The Parade. Scarborough Road turns off State Highway One about one kilometre south of Timaru. The southern part of the beach is also accessible from the end of Ellis Road, a further kilometre or so south from the Scarborough Road turnoff. I usually park at the intersection of Scarborough Road and The Parade. On Google Maps, this is called “Jacks Point Surfspot” (see photo above, second from right). From here, you can walk across the railway onto the beginning of the Jack’s Point/Tuhawaiki Point Walkway. The walkway runs south atop the cliffs above the southern section of the beach, ending up at the Ellis Road Beach carpark, a 45 minutes walk. About 100 metres after crossing the railway, you can slip down onto the beach at the point where the track is closest to the beach and dips the lowest (see photos below).
Once on the beach, you can go either left (north) or right (south). To the left takes you towards Timaru, past the remains of an old wharf. A large bank of rocks has recently been constructed at the back of the beach, starting near the old wharf, to protect the likes of the railway line from coastal erosion. I have not yet fossicked much past the wharf.
At the beach entry, to the right takes you initially to what is marked on the topo map as Mutu Mutu Point, just under 300 metres away. Here you get waves coming from two directions and a small surf break. It is about 1,200 metres from Mutu Mutu Point to the lighthouse, and another 400 metres to the Ellis Road Beach carpark. There are usually lots of stones right along the beach from the entry point to Mutu Mutu Point.
North of Mutu Mutu Point, large patches of sand also appear across the beach and at times the stones can be scattered more thinly. The beach widens out as you move south and in a couple of places the cliffs disappear. I have twice encountered seals along this stretch. You can catch a glimpse of the lighthouse above you, and eventually you will reach the Ellis Road Beach carpark. The day I visited there in late June 2021 was foggy, as you can see in some of the photos below. I have fossicked a little south of the Ellis Road Beach carpark, and I found scatterings of stones to continue there. Note that the last part of Ellis Road to the carpark is gravel.
A YouTube video that has drone footage of the Timaru South beach from the Scarborough Road/Parade intersection to beyond the lighthouse is here.
Other TumbleStoneTwo Page on Timaru South Beach:
TIMARU SOUTH: MY STONE FOSSICKING
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