I visited Gemstone Beach, Orepuki, this morning for three hours. Chrissy Lampitt, who lives further west along the coast at Papatotara, joined me – her tumbling blog is called Tumble and Polish.
It was an eventful fossick. The highlight was meeting a fellow fossicker who showed us a blue Gemstone Beach sapphire that he had just found (this is Chrissy’s Post about the sapphire). I have never found one myself and have been wondering if any of these elusive stones were still around. Seeing it, and being able to recognise it straight away, has given me confidence that if I came across one I would know what it is. See this Post for some background on Gemstone Beach sapphires.
Only one small poppy jasper turned up, but we found some impressive trace fossil stones. The day was cloudy and when I took photos of my finds back at my accommodation, it was difficult to avoid intrusive reflections.
Chrissy and I found a number of nice hydrogrossular garnets, including a couple of reasonably big ones. Other fossickers we met today were also finding some good ones.
In general today, there was a little more sand and less stones than often is the case along this part of Te Waewae Bay. However, lots and lots of stones nevertheless are present, offering a diversity of treasures. The TumbleStoneTwo home page for Gemstone Beach is here.
The next Part of this Series, featuring a large green hydrogrossular garnet found previously by another fossicker, can be found here. The first Part can be found here. The Series Index is here.
It was such a good day for fossicking and find hydrogrossulars! I agree the highlight was seeing the elusive blue sapphire in person!! Wow!
I have just checked on that lovely big “brown looking” hydrogrossular garnet you gave me – it’s just come out of a 10 day tumble at 220grit. It’s looking pretty good (photo here) and has gone into a 400grit tumble for 10 days! It sure is a beauty!!
Thanks. Be interested to see how it comes out.