It was a nice sunny morning with very little wind today at Gemstone Beach, in complete contrast to yesterday’s storm. The stones had been moved around and turned over but I didn’t find anything spectacular – apart from a few intriguing mainly small pebbles, most of them relatively close to the carpark. I walked the beach with Chrissy who lives at The Cliffs, a few kilometres west of Gemstone Beach. We had a fossick together here on 24 March, see this Post. We were on the lookout for small poppy jaspers, having been inspired by the nice specimens found recently especially by Angie – see this Post.
Chrissy and I, and Ohla her dog, walked down to the Waimeamea Lagoon, crossing it halfway along, following the route described in this Post. We didn’t have a lot of luck with our finds so turned back after a decent interval spent west of the Lagoon.
It was while we were fording the Waimeamea lagoon on our way back that Chrissy spotted a very nice small smooth poppy jasper in the water. I’ve not seen one so smooth before. Then as we got closer to the Taunoa Stream, I found a small hematite jasper, perhaps brecciated rather than orbicular, while digging in the stones, and a very small poppy jasper (1.5 cm long) in the stream itself. I’ve now noticed that Jocelyn Thornton has a photo of a small poppy jasper on her page of Orepuki in her 1985 “Gemstones” booklet (see page 36 here and photo below, top row far right). Its size is similar to our finds.
When going through her finds later, Chrissy said she discovered a couple more small poppy jaspers.
Some of my other finds today:
Chrissy and I are thinking we’ll fossick here again tomorrow to see how the stones change overnight.
The next Post in this Series describes the follow-up fossick by Chrissy and me. The first Post in the “Southern Sojourn 2023” Series is here. The Index to the Series is here.
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