My “Southern Sojourn” was an opportunity for me to spend significant time collecting beach stones for tumble polishing. I was able to rent a house in Riverton Aparima as my base. This enabled me to visit nearby Gemstone Beach many times in many different conditions, maximising my chance to find attractive and interesting stones there. Altogether, I stayed for 78 days at my Riverton Aparima base. I left home (Whanganui) on 17 January, reaching Riverton Aparima on 21 January. After 30 days, I had a break, flying home on 21 February, returning to Riverton Aparima 20 days later (Post 22 was my first one back after the break). I finally packed up and left there on 1 May and caught a Cook Strait ferry at Picton on 5 May, arriving home that afternoon.
I conducted 57 beach fossicks during this time, on seven different beaches. Most of the fossicks (44) were at Gemstone Beach/Te Waewae Bay. I also visited one of two beaches at Slope Point five times, Kakanui’s Seadown Beach four times and Ward Beach twice, with single fossicks at Timaru South and Leithfield Beach. I reported on each fossick initially on the Facebook Group “New Zealand Lapidary, Rocks, Minerals, Fossils” then wrote a usually slightly longer Post, with more photos, for TumbleStone Blog.
Many of my fossicking days while based at Riverton Aparima went like this. After a quick breakfast, I drove about 25 minutes to Gemstone Beach and fossicked on average for about three and a half hours (it varied between two hours – as in Post 24 – and just over five hours – for example, Post 53). I then drove back to my base. There, I immediately put the day’s finds in a blue plastic basin, added water, and used a torch to examine each one, setting them out on a towel on the kitchen bench. During this process, I selected up to about 20 of the most interesting finds to photograph wet for the Posts.
If the sunlight was adequate, I then photographed each of these stones about six or seven times (Post 17 refers to difficulties due to lack of sunlight). Initially, I took the photos on the back deck of my rented house but then had to take them out the front as the late autumn sun moved lower in the afternoon sky.
I was then able to grab something to eat as the pressure to catch the sun for photos was off. After that, I loaded the photos onto my laptop and spent up to between one-and-a-half and two hours working with the photos, choosing the best, cropping them, and producing close-ups, then preparing them for the internet, especially re-sizing (the photos of stones immediately above are the originals, prior to cropping). I next wrote an account of my fossick and then posted this account, along with the photos of selected stones and the beach, on Facebook and (sometimes quite a bit later) on TumbleStone Blog. My evening meal was next, or sometimes it took place during the process I am describing. What this all meant was that I was kept busy sometimes more than an eight hour day. Depending on the weather (availability of sunshine), some photos had to be taken the next day or even later, with the posting to Facebook and Blog following – this reduced the degree of pressure on the fossick day. And bad weather or the need to do other things meant that not every day was a fossick day. Three examples of the kind of reflections that can show up on photos of stones if not taken in direct sunlight:
The Blog Posts on my Southern Sojourn are important to me, for they provide a record of individual stones. I can always go back to the Posts to see the stones, even years from now. It’s also like putting these stones on public display, for others to appreciate and to inform people about the diversity of gorgeous stones to be found on some South Island beaches. The stones are the heroes of the Posts. They provide the interest and beauty. There were always many more gorgeous specimens than I needed for a Post. I struggled to whittle the number down each time. One Post features 26 stones (Post 49) but most Posts include between eight and 15. In total, 662 stones are featured (photographed) in the Southern Sojourn Series.
Prior to leaving Riverton Aparima, I couriered about 100 kgs of stones home. I used the “Pass the Parcel” service for this, and it worked well. The packs were picked up from the house and were delivered within a few days.
That meant my car was a bit more comfortable to load and drive on the way home, and I had room for more stones from Kakanui and Ward Beach.
It is good to be back home. But “home” can be a complex notion in the modern world. In some ways, “home” to me is actually Southland – the farm near Gore on which I grew up, the small town and school of Waikaka, and the regular summer holidays I spent as a child at Riverton Aparima. So going down to Riverton Aparima feels like “going home”. But then my “home” these days is in Whanganui, with my wife and all our animals, my books, and my stone shed and tumblers. The meaning of a childhood home – “Where I came from” – and the homesickness felt for it, is well expressed in Dougie MacLean’s “Caledonia”:
I don’t know if you can see
The changes that have come over me
In these last few days I’ve been afraid
That I might drift away
So I’ve been telling old stories, singing songs
That make me think about where I came from
And that’s the reasons why I seem so far away today
Oh and let me tell you that I love you
That I think about you all the time
Caledonia you’re calling me and now I’m going home
But if I should become a stranger
You know that it would make me more than sad
Caledonia’s been everything I’ve ever had
I have moved and I’ve kept on moving
Proved the points that I needed proving
Lost the friends that I needed losing
Found others on the way
I have tried and kept on trying
Stolen dreams, yes there’s no denying
I have travelled hard, with conscience flying
Somewhere with the wind
Oh and let me tell you that I love you
That I think about you all the time
Caledonia you’re calling me and now I’m going home
If I should become a stranger
You know that it would make me more than sad
Caledonia’s been everything I’ve ever had
Now I’m sitting here before the fire
The empty room, the forest choir
The flames that couldn’t get any higher
Well they’ve withered now, they’ve gone
But I’m steady thinking, my way is clear
And I know what I will do tomorrow
When the hands have shaken and the kisses flow
Well I will disappear
Oh and let me tell you that I love you
That I think about you all the time
Caledonia you’re calling me and now I’m going home
If I should become a stranger
You know that it would make me more than sad
Caledonia’s been everything I’ve ever had
***
The first Post in the “Southern Sojourn 2023” Series is here and the Index to the Series is here.
3 thoughts on “Southern Sojourn 2023(60): In Retrospect”