August 2025 Stone Collecting Trip – Part 14, Stones of Bluecliffs, Stones of Iona: A Photo Fossick, Wednesday 20 August

Seeking another break from working on images of stones and on blog posts led me to visit Bluecliffs Beach, just four kilometres west from where I am staying. I included a brief comment on this beach right at the end of a 2019 Post. As you move west along the Te Waewae Bay coast, the stones get bigger and bigger, and the stones on Bluecliffs Beach can be quite big! Many of the stones are over ten centimetres wide, some of them reaching 30 centimetres.

It was around noon when I drove across the new bridge over the Rowallan Burn and parked nearby. I walked 100 metres or so along a closed gravel road which had become a victim of the sea’s erosion, and then turned left onto the beach. It was cloudy, 11 degrees, and with a light breeze that wasn’t strong enough to deter a number of sandflies. There was a bank of large stones running for hundreds of metres along the shoreline, with sand at its base. The tide was high enough for waves to lap the bank from time to time. I walked for about 800 to 900 metres before turning around, a stroll over over two hours. I took photos of a number of the stones along the way, so this was primarily a photo fossick. But mostly I walked and enjoyed the quiet solitary wildness – it was just me, the stones, the waves and the bush. (And a few sandflies.)

Most of the stones here seem to be granite, some quite light coloured, some with significant black in them, some orange/pink. There are a lot of varieties of quartz, some having feldspar patches.

But the stones that grab your attention first are the darker coloured ones with shell fossils in them:

The beach features in “The Kiwi Fossil Hunter’s Handbook” under the heading of “Te Waewae Bay”. Below are the first four pages of the six-page entry. At least 40 different kinds of shell fossils have been found in the mudstones and sandstones of the Te Waewae Bay formation that is exposed in this area. These fossils are between four and five million years old.

Ten of the stones I noticed in my walk – most of these are larger than 10 centimetres:

Interesting small smooth stones were few a far between but I did put nine in my bag:

At the east end of the beach is Rowallan Burn. Its name was bestowed by the Scottish people who settled the southern part of New Zealand, the region south of the Waitaki River. For example, there is a Rowallan Castle southwest of Glasgow.

Another Scottish name that occurs in the south, and much more often, is Iona. It is a name used for a wide range of features. For example, on my trips south, I regularly drive past Camp Iona in Herbert, North Otago, a facility owned by the Presbyterian Church. Port Calmers’ Iona Presbyterian Church was the second church to be built in Otago, the third in the South Island. There’s an Iona Island near Half Moon Bay in Rakiura Stewart Island. Gore’s Peacehaven Retirement Village’s dementia care unit is called Iona. Many towns and cities in the south have streets named Iona. I have also seen a number of private houses with “Iona” on them. This song by The Waterboys is about the Scottish island of Iona, but it echoes aspects of Bluecliffs Beach, especially what I experienced as the “peace of the stones”:

“Peace of Iona” by The Waterboys (2003)

Peace of the glancing dancing waves
Peace of the white sands
Peace of Iona
Peace of the singing wind
Peace of the stones
Peace of Iona
I-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i ona

Peace of the crying gulls
Peace of the humming bees
Peace of the noon-time stillness
Peace of the dreaming hills
Peace of the breath of angels
Peace of Iona
I-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i ona

Peace of the saints and seekers
Peace of the monks and Druids
Peace of the resting place of kings
Peace of the ruins
Peace of the doves in the bell tower
Peace of Iona
I-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i ona

Peace of the rested mind
Peace of the glad heart
Peace of my lover’s pots and potions
Peace of her healing hands
Peace of her lazy laughter
Peace of Iona
I-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i ona

The tiny island of Iona sits off the west coast of the Isle of Mull in the Highlands of Scotland. It’s just five kilometres long and one and a half kilometres wide. It’s known as Scotland’s sacred isle. An abbey was founded there in 563 by the monk Columba who spread the Christian faith to most of Scotland and northern England (the Presbyterian Church has a Camp Columba at Pukerau, near Gore – I attended a number of Easter Camps there when of high school age). The famous “Book of Kells”, a lavishly illustrated set of the four Gospels, was produced by Iona monks from 800 on. This centre for learning and worship became a place of pilgrimage and even of political significance – it is said that 48 Scottish kings are buried there. Mike Scott of The Waterboys visited Iona a number of times – for a period he was living at the Findhorn Foundation Community which had a retreat house on the island (see YouTube video above). His stay there in 1994 inspired him to write “Peace of Iona”. Iona and Bluecliffs Beach are completely different places – but the peace of the stones is common to both.

The next Post in this Series describes a three hour fossick on Gemstone Beach, my second-last visit there for this trip. An Index to the Series is here.