September 2024 Stone Collecting Trip –Part 22, Back to Kakanui’s Seadown Beach, Morning of Monday 30 September

Sunday was a travel day, driving from Chrissy and Mike’s place at Papatotara, southwest of Tuatapere in Southland, to Oamaru in North Otago. I stayed at the Alma Motel for two nights, just south of Oamaru – this is the motel with a roadside sign saying “Spend a night, not a fortune”. I visited nearby Seadown Beach twice today (Monday) – at low tide in the morning and at high tide in the afternoon. I also had a fossick here on Tuesday morning, before continuing my drive north. I had visited the beach four times on my way south, which meant I had a total of seven fossicks here this month, all well worthwhile.

For my Monday morning fossick, I arrived at the beach at 8.20 am. It was sunny though cool, and there was a lone surfer out beyond the kelp beds. I ended up spending only 90 minutes on the beach as there were far fewer stones than I expected. Usually, at the southern end of the beach, close to and among the rocks, there is a large number of stones but this was not the case today – it was 99% sand. I ended up spending some time also looking among the dry stones further along the beach as there were hardly any at all along the waves’ edge. It is difficult to recognise interesting stones when they are dry and dull and dusty.

However, I did come away with something like 70 finds. Twelve of them are featured below. Among them was a nice large stone full of bryozoan fossils, a type of stone I was hoping to find:

This was the only stone of this type that I found this morning, despite careful searching. I came across it late in the fossick, among a scattering of dry stones. See the TumbleStone Post “Bryozoan Fossils in Chalcedony, Kakanui’s Seadown Beach” for more information on these fossils.

There are some amazing dark red jaspers to be found on this beach. This is a gorgeous brecciated one from this morning, similar to one I had found when I stopped off on my way south (see the beginning of this Post):

Another brecciated jasper, though not quite as well defined:

The beach is also well-known for its quartzites. Here are three of the “standard” yellow ones I collected:

This one is unusual in that it has a rough patch along the top, as if parts of the surface had worn away unevenly there:

I also found quite a dark variation…

…and a light-coloured variation:

This next stone attracts the eye with its circular features – I had found a similar one on my way south, just over three weeks ago (see near the end of this Post):

And, lastly, two of the softish limestone-like stones, that contain tiny fossil shells, that can be found here:

The next Post in this Series reports on Monday afternoon’s fossick at Seadown Beach. The Index to the Posts in this Series can be found here.