Some stone collecting days are more productive than others. I arrived at Gemstone Beach about 9.30 am, a cool seven degrees but very little wind and the sun was shining. It was about 90 minutes after high tide. The Taunoa Stream was too deep and swift to ford so I was restricted to fossicking on the beach in front of the carpark, a stretch of about 200 metres. I found a dozen or so stones, and gave away a trace fossil stone and hydrogrossular garnet to a man who was picking up stones for his son. This stone is the most interesting of the ones I took away with me.
After 45 minutes on Gemstone Beach, I decided to drive further west for about eight kilometres to McCracken’s Rest, a roadside lay-by and viewpoint. The Rest is on the same stretch of Te Waewae Bay as Gemstone Beach but the stones tend lack the same quality. There are also bigger stones here.
This Post describes my first visit to McCracken’s Rest in 2019. Access down to the beach from the viewpoint is not easy – a fence has to be climbed (avoiding the electric fence part) and a steep slippery slope has to be negotiated. I spent another 45 minutes here and found little of interest until I was about to leave the beach. It was then that I found a large pink thulite stone, 10 cms long. A good candidate for the rock garden.
Thulite is the national gemstone of Norway where it was first discovered. As Wikipedia notes, it is manganese that is the source of the pink colour. A thulite stone was January 2022, Stone of the Day #5, and that Post includes a photo of specimens from the Riverton Aparima Museum. Wet thulite stones are often very attractive and often have areas of swirling pink. However, some of them fail to tumble polish well, not taking a shine at all.
On my way back to my accommodation in Riverton, I decided to go on to a third beach, the beach at Howell’s Point, Riverton Rocks, which I know as the Back Beach. I had visited it four days ago and found some poppy jaspers – see “Back to the Back Beach”.
I spent a further 45 minutes fossicking there, but it was largely unproductive. Included in the handful of stones I collected was this trace fossil in argillite.
It was a good day to be on the three beaches I visited, and the walking always does me good. But I’m hoping for better results tomorrow when I will head back to Gemstone Beach.
Part 10 reports on a much more productive fossick on Gemstone Beach with Chrissy and Ohla. The first Post in this Series can be found here.
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