This year I have again produced a photo calendar, mainly to give to family and friends for Christmas. Above are photos of the covers of this year’s calendar and three previous ones. My 2023 calendar features polished stones from two South Island beaches, Kakanui’s Seadown Beach and Slope Point. I use Diamond Photo online to produce the calendar, though it is not the most user-friendly site.
For the calendar, each month’s format consists of one page for photos, just slightly smaller than A4 size, with another A4 size page below it containing the month’s dates. This year, 11 of the months feature a solitary stone, with December the only month featuring four.
The Cover features a shot of one of the Slope Point beaches, with fellow fossicker Oliver Simpson walking away, head down, a white plume of spray from a wave pounding onto the rocks in the background. January’s stone is from Kakanui, a pale yellow quartzite with some white patches, containing many tiny clear quartz crystals. Below is a scan of that month’s picture, plus three others. One is another Kakanui quartzite that appears in September, this one being more colourful. Two further Kakanui stones can be found in May and August, one a dark red brecciated jasper, the other a complex green stone which may also be a kind of quartzite.
A range of gorgeous volcanic stones can be found on Slope Point beaches. February, June and July’s solitary stones and December’s four stones are good examples. [Note: 12 December 2022: Oliver Simpson pointed out to me that the top left December stone actually comes from Gemstone Beach – he had found it there and I had polished it for him, and I later forgot these details, thinking it came from Slope Point.]
To show you two other months. April features a petrified wood stone from Slope Point, that has a couple of veins of what looks like agate. And October features a fossilised sea floor stone from Kakanui, that contains many tiny fossil shells and probably other tiny creatures.
Kakanui’s Seadown Beach lies about 12 kilometres south of Oamaru. The southern end of this beach is at the intersection of Thousand Acres Road/Beach Road and Seadown Road. To the south is a stretch of rocky cliffs, to the north is a sweeping sandy beach with lots of stones. See here for an introduction to the beach. More information on the beach and its stones can be found here.
Slope Point is the southernmost part of the South Island, located about 70 kilometres east of Invercargill. Tourists are directed to a carpark from where they can walk across a windswept paddock to the top of high rocky cliffs looking out over a wild sea. Fossickers for beach stones have to drive a couple of kilometres further along a narrow gravel road before crossing paddocks down awkward slopes to reach their goal. See here for an account of a fossick at one Slope Point beach, and here for an account of another. Many of the Slope Point stones have arisen from Jurassic Era volcanic activity and debris flows, which also produced the petrified trees of nearby Curio Bay (see this brief introduction to the petrified forest of Curio Bay).
Keeping in mind that this is essentially an amateur production, if you want to buy one of these 2023 Calendars for yourself, email me at john.tumblestone@gmail.com. To cover expenses, it will cost you NZ$25 (postage included, in New Zealand).
About my 2022 Calendar, see here, for my 2021 Calendar, see here, and for my 2020 Calendar, see here.
Thanks for your blog,i find it so very interesting and informative. Do you have any spare calendars for sale this year?
Hi Christine. Good to hear from you! Yes, I can sell you a calendar, $25 (incl postage). I will email you. John