I crossed Cook Strait on Monday by ferry, having a comfortable sailing. I then stayed two nights in Ward, Southern Marlborough, at the Flaxbourne Motels, warmly hosted by Ronnie and Ian. On Tuesday, I visited Ward Beach twice. The first visit was for an hour in the morning, collecting 25 stones – the tide was coming in and one extra large wave rushed far enough up the beach to get the back of my jeans wet. My second visit, in dry jeans, was for 90 minutes in the afternoon, collecting 23 stones, the outgoing tide proving less difficult to negotiate. The morning fossick was on the beach in front of the carpark, the afternoon involved a walk south, crossing the Flaxbourne River and going about 800 metres further before turning back. The day’s weather was cool, around 13 to 14 degrees, cloudy in the morning but some sunshine appearing in the afternoon, enough for me to take photos of my finds once I got back to the motel.
On the beach in front of the carpark, the sea had moved away some of the stones so that there was a drop down towards the waves. Some seaweed had also been deposited there.
The Flaxbourne River mouth consisted of a narrow and shallow stream, squeezed between rocks and gravel, easily forded. This area is featured in a GeoTrip “Uplift at Ward Beach”. The beach south of there for about 700 metres does not have many rounded stones. It’s an area dominated by large rocks, some smooth, many jagged. It includes parts of a few Ward Beach boulders, though the main group of boulders is further north – see Geotrip “Ward Beach Boulders”. Also further north are the Chancet Rocks, a jagged outcrop of limestone strata – see Geotrip “Chancet Rocks Reserve”. This is a scientific reserve beause a vein within the Rocks represents the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary. This boundary marks the end of the Age of the Dinosaurs caused by a devastating asteroid impact in Mexico. “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (“NZ Geographic” Jan-Feb 2022) is an article by Warren Judd on the K-Pg boundary in North Canterbury/Southern Marlborough. I walked past a number of smaller jagged limestone outcrops on my walk south, photos of four included below.
Some of the stones on the beach in situ, and my 48 finds:
A series of five Posts on tumbled Ward Beach stones shows the types of stones I look for here. Foremost are limestone pebbles with trace fossils, and there are always quite a few of them on the beach. Among the ones I collected on Tuesday were these four:
Limestone pebbles can come in a range of colours on Ward Beach, not just grey. This one is mainly blue with small areas of lemon yellow plus some brown rusty patches:
Other colours I came across:
A wavy limestone pebble:
I kept an eye open for stones that had veins and/or a mix of hard (often fint) and soft (mainly limestone) material, but didn’t find many. This one was the best:
A couple of tiny jasper(?) stones, with interesting patterns – the first is the size of my thumbnail, the second as tiny as my small fingernail:
Finally, I found three similar igneous stones with interesting crystals in them. This is the biggest:
Next planned fossick is at Timaru South beach with Sascha in a couple of days – see here. An Index to this Series is here.
Glad your ferry crossing was comfortable! Last week was yuck for a lot of people!
That wavy limestone is incredibly cute!