My second-last fossick at Gemstone Beach/Te Waewae Bay for this trip took place today. It was another fine sunny windless Southland autumn day. I met up with Chrissy from The Cliffs at 9.30 am and we spent a few hours fossicking, initially working westwards from the Gemstone Beach carpark and along a long cliff-shaded section. We turned back when we reached the cliffs at the point where the Waimeamea River arrives at the coast, at the start of its lagoon. Chrissy demonstrated her newly-gained competence at identifying hydrogrossular garnets and probably found more than I did. At one point, the local gold miner called out to me from the opposite bank of the river and kindly threw a nice dark hydrogrossular garnet across it (heart in mouth that it didn’t fall short, and that I could find it once it landed). He knows my interest in such stones – I see him and his fox terrier on the beach most days and have chatted to him a couple of times.
There seemed to be fewer reds on the beach, though we still found at least a couple of poppy jaspers each. The “baker’s dozen” (13) of my finds from today starts off with two poppy jaspers:
A complex volcanic stone whose yellow veins caught my eye, along with the stress fractures in it:
The fourth stone looks like it is on the way to being orbed but didn’t quite get there. There are tiny orange crystals or infilled holes which, along with some white quartz areas, brighten it up:
Another one with sort-of-orbs in it:
The orange and white in the sixth stone caught my eye, along with the tiny details I could discern on the beach:
Two very different light-coloured stones, one a brecciated quartz, the other a stone with layers of clouds of some mineral:
Two different types of “speckled” stone:
The final three stones are hydrogrossular garnets, two of them being pale coloured and partly translucent, the third, of a darker hue, being the one kindly thrown to me across the river by the gold miner.
The first Post in the “Southern Sojourn 2023” Series is here. The Index to the Series is here.
It certainly was a “Hydrogrossular” kinda day wasn’t it? Total count (not including the 4 you kindly gave me) was 10 known ones and 14 on-the-fence ones! Going to write a blog post on them once I finish playing catch-up!!
You found some nice ones too!