I’m staying at Chrissy and Mike’s place at Papatotara, 34 kilometres by road via Tuatapere from Gemstone Beach, 15 kilometres along the coast as the karoro (black-backed seagull) flies. The beach here, on Te Waewae Bay, is west of the Waiau River, with Gemstone Beach being east of the river. Chrissy has featured some of the stones she has found on this beach in her Tumble and Polish Blog. She made these observations: “Whilst not as smooth as its Gemstone Beach counterparts, there’s always the odd stunner that catches my eye. Theses stones often need a few tumbles/redos in Stage 1 because they are a lot rougher. There is a lot of granite down here too and that particular stone doesn’t tumble too well.”
After doing some blogging on Friday morning, I decided to take a break and go to the beach. This involved a 12 minute walk across a couple of paddocks, through some muddy patches, and down a steep track. I arrived on the beach at 12.55pm during a low tide. It was sunny with a light breeze. I fossicked eastwards for more than an hour then turned around and fossicked back to the beach entrance. I left at 2.40pm with about 40 finds. For the first time this trip, sandflies appeared and I had to put my hands in my pockets to avoid their bites.
I found a very nice green hydrogrossular garnet, half buried in the sand near the beach entrance. This is the furthest west on Te Waewae Bay that I have found one. It is also among the best half dozen garnets I have found. Its green colour is the classic gooseberry-green hue of a hydrogrossular, and is a deeper green than most specimens. Corina, a local fossicker, told me a couple of days ago that old-timers used to find green ones a lot more than are found currently. In February 2024, I was shown an even better green one found by Vern on Gemstone Beach. My find today (Friday) is a nice size with some heft to it. Here are photos of it dry:
And here are photos of it wet, as well as with a torch behind it:
As Pink Floyd puts it, “In the shadow of the wave…, green is the colour of her kind”. They were singing, at one level, about the green island of Ibiza, part of the Spanish Mediterranean, which they were visiting to record an album. But green is also the colour of hydrogrossular kind.
“Green is the Colour” by Pink Floyd (1969)
Heavy hung the canopy of blue
Shade my eyes and I can see you
White is the light that shines through the dress that you wore
She lay in the shadow of the wave
Hazy were the visions of her playing
Sunlight on her eyes but moonshine made her cry every time
Green is the colour of her kind
Quickness of the eye deceives the mind
Envy is the bond between the hopeful and the damned
Chrissy has told me that she has found a good-sized poppy jasper on this beach. Today (Friday) I found three small specimens:
I spotted a small pink thulite stone, and a larger banded argillite:
Four more Friday finds:
The next day, Saturday, I spotted a whale out in Te Waewae Bay, in front of my accommodation. For quite some time, it was lifting its tail out of the water then slapping it back down:
Not long after, I returned to the same beach I had visited on Friday, this time walking westwards, the opposite direction. I spent two hours there. The tide was a little lower and less stones were wet. At one point, two horses and riders loomed out of the distance in front of me.
I found fewer stones than Friday, no hydrogrossular garnets, but two poppy jaspers, one very small.
A couple of interesting green stones:
Two black and white stones:
Four final Saturday finds:
The next Post in this Series takes us to Gemstone Beach again. An Index to the Series is here.
Hi John, looks like you are having some exciting finds !! Can you tell me about access to Papatotara beach as i am going to be down that way in a few weeks, Thanks Christine
My Uncle Jack and Aunty Mavis lived in Papatotara in the 60’s and I think my cousin Joy still lives there. The beach there at Bluecliffs is where we used to go for toheroa in the 60’s. There was good access down to the beach back then. I have a hydroglossular garnet my father (even though he died at age 48, he’d now be counted one of the old-timers, being born in 1920) picked up and which was always a favourite of mine as a child. I feel so lucky to have it sitting in front of me every day as I write. Funnily enough, it has the shape of a whale! Pink Floyd is a favourite band of my husband’s. (Lots of synchronicities …)
Thanks for this, Kay. The hydrogrossular garnets are really interesting stones. And for once I chose the song for this Post simply for the phrase in it. I usually work from the songs I enjoy to the content of a Post. In this case, I searched generally for songs with green in them and eventually came across it. Probably not the best of Pink Floyd’s music, but it kind of fit the bill.