The 2025 TumbleStone Calendar features beach stones collected during my two South Island fossicking trips in 2024. The first of these two trips took place from mid-February to late March, the second in the month of September. For the last few years, I have produced calendars on stone-related themes for family and friends, and have made a few available for sale as well (see, for example, the 2023 Calendar and 2024 Calendar).
Each month of the 2025 Calendar presents photos of four stones from a particular beach, along with a scene from that beach. January and February feature Gemstone Beach and Slope Point, March and April feature Kakanui and Gemstone Beach, May and June take us to Ward Beach and Kakanui, July and August have stones from Slope Point and Gemstone Beach, September and October feature Gemstone Beach and Ward Beach, and in November and December we travel to Kakanui and Gemstone Beach. The four beaches in the Calendar are on the cover – Ward Beach (Marlborough), Kakanui’s Seadown Beach (North Otago), Slope Point (the southernmost point of the South Island) and Gemstone Beach (near Orepuki in Southland). Twelve months, four beaches, 48 stones.
I provide an identification for most of the stones – some are “unknown”. The identifications in some cases are tentative and I continue to do research on them. So I am offering my current views, which may change even in the course of writing the following Posts about each month. At times, the weather was not good when I visited the beaches, so blue skies are not present in all the beach scene photos. The stones were photographed individually in the rough and while wet, being held in my hand in bright sunlight. A variety of types and colours of stones are included.
The photo page for each month is A4 size, with an A4 set of dates below that. Spiral binding keeps everything together. I use Diamond Photo to construct and print the Calendars. I always do two or three drafts of a Calendar before finalising it, trying to get a good result with the layout, colours and text. These 2025 Calendars are for sale, with postage within New Zealand included, for $30 non-rural, $35 rural. Contact me at john.tumblestone@gmail.com.
Posts that provide information on each of the stones in the Calendar are: January and February, March and April, May and June, July and August, September and October, and November and December.