August 2025 Stone Collecting Trip – Part 6, A Simple Song, A Simple Stone, Gemstone Beach, Tuesday 5 August

On the beach, many stones simply look plain and uninteresting, especially when they are dry. Seeing them when they are wet is a different experience – their colours come alive. Picking one up and viewing it at close quarters reveals even more. Veins appear, patches emerge, patterns become clearer. And when I see a close-up photo of a stone, its history and complexity and beauty are all revealed, and I can but marvel. A simple stone, that turns out to be not so simple.

I always feel privileged to be on the beach looking for such “simple stones”. There’s no better way to spend an hour or three. T0 quote, and slightly change, some lyrics from a “Simple Song”: “Here’s a simple stone, won’t stop the rain from coming down or your heart from breaking. Just a simple stone, it’s never gonna turn this day around, stop the earth from shaking. It’s just a simple stone…” And sometimes finding such a stone CAN turn your day around.

Passenger’s “Simple Song” (lyrics at end of Post):

Today I fossicked on Gemstone Beach again. I arrived after lunch, a couple of hours before low tide. The weather was sunny with only a light breeze, the temperature being around nine degrees. A handful of others were there, mainly in front of the carpark. After crossing the Taunoa Stream, I came upon the local gold miner and Tig, his small fox terrier. We had a chat, I patted the dog, then I continued along to the Waimeamea River Lagoon. I passed another bearded fossicker on his way back but otherwise no-one else was that far down the beach. I got back to the carpark two and a half hours after I arrived, the temperature at that stage being ten degrees.

Another 18 of my finds today are featured below. This one is a great example of how close-up photos reveal what the naked eye can’t easily see. In this case, tiny white spots appear, along with details of the differently-coloured patches in the small stone:

Some stones are transparent and holding them up to the light can tell you more about what is in them or confirm your suspicions from what you initially see:

Most stones look very similar no matter which side you view. The occasional one surprises you when you turn it over. This is an example of a stone that incorporates material from both sides of a contact boundary:

I have come to recognise a few different types of stones on Gemstone Beach. One is thulite – this find is a good example, with its distinctive clouds of pink and i small fragments of white quartz:

However, are all pink stones thulite? No. Sometimes I have found pink rhodonite here. This next stone is not easy to identify with any certainty – thulite or rhodonite or something else? Its pink is less intense, there are no quartz fragments, and do the darker patches hint at the maganese oxide to be found in rhodonite?

My next two finds are quite different from each other but I wonder whether both have significant amounts of hydrogrossular garnet in them. They are not obvious specimens of garnet but both have elements suggestive of it. I found the first in a flow of water seeping through the bank of stones holding back the Waimeamea River Lagoon. It is the largest stone I have collected for some time. I thought it might be quartz, but the pattern of its colours can be found in hydrogrossular garnet. It has a very smooth surface that has maybe a hint of waxiness:

The second candidate for hydrogrossular garnet looks like it could be a mudstone, and it is also quite large. At times I think I spot a garnet on the beach but it turns out to be a mudstone angled in such a way that the sun glints off it. Again, it doesn’t really feel waxy but it lcks the opaqueness I associate with mudstone and the vein material is very suggestive of hydrorossular garnet:

Unlike the previous three fossicks here, I found very few trace fossil stones today but quite a few hydrogrossular garnets. There was no doubt about them. Here are four, of various colours and textures:

And a hydrogrossular garnet with a lot of dark diopside in it:

The next two finds are very glassy. When I first came across this type of stone, I was told it was likely a form of hydrogrossular garnet. More recently, I have been told it could be chromite in quartz. I’m not sure how to confirm one way or the other. The first find below is a typical green for this kind of stone (I found it about 10 metres past the gold man), the second is unusually white:

Two jasper stones I found today, the first an intense red almost mossy in character, the second a brecciated (fragmented) duller opaque variety but with a touch of green epidote:

Some stones have clealy defined bands or lines, like this banded argillite:

Other stones have less defined edges to the different colours in them, like this one (which could in fact be a hydrogrossular garnet):

Simple stones, but endlessly fascinating.

Lyrics for “Simple Song” by Passenger (Michael Rosenberg), released 2017

Here’s a simple song
Won’t stop the rain from coming down
Or your heart from breaking
Here’s a simple song
It’s never gonna turn this day around
Stop the earth from shaking
It’s just a simple song
Nothing right or wrong
You can sing along if you want to

Well, I know it’s not been easy
But easy ain’t worth singing about
Yeah, I know, I know
The time goes slow
But it’s always running out

Here’s a simple song
Won’t stop the rain from coming down
Or your heart from breaking
Here’s a simple song
It’s never gonna turn this day around
Or stop the earth from shaking
Yeah, it’s just a simple song
Nothing right or wrong
You can sing along if you want to

Well, I know it’s far from simple
But simple ain’t worth worrying about
Yeah, I know, I know
It’s time to go
I think I keep on finding
Everything seems to be about timing

Here’s a simple song
Won’t stop the rain from coming down
Or your heart from breaking
Just a simple song
Never gonna turn this day around
Stop the earth from shaking
It’s just a simple song
Nothing right or wrong
You can sing along if you want to

Whoah, it’s just a simple song
Nothing right or wrong
You can sing along if you want to

The next Post in this Series covers another Gemstone Beach fossick conducted the next day. An Index to the Series is here.