I’m heading to Invercargill for the launch of “What’s This Stone?”, a small book by Chrissy and me. This will take place on 10 September at the monthly meeting of the Southland Geological and Lapidary Club (7pm in the Seminar Room at First Presbyterian Church, 155 Tay Street – the book will come out after the evening’s guest speaker – everyone welcome). I could have flown down but decided to drive and stop off at a few beaches as well as spend a few days in the South.
When I left Whanganui on Friday 4 September, it was raining heavily and the wind was very strong. Just south of Sanson, I watched three ducks furiously flapping, trying to make headway into the wind, and actually going backwards. My Cook Strait ferry company advised my sailing would be leaving 60 to 90 minutes late due to high winds affecting berthing. However, things settled sooner than expected and it left just five minutes after the scheduled time. The Strait had the odd big wave but generally the crossing was fairly smooth.
On Friday night, I stayed at Flaxbourne Motels in Ward. On Saturday morning, before driving to Christchurch, I visited Ward Beach for 30 minutes. Arriving at 10am, the morning was cloudy and cool, 12 degrees, with a cold breeze. The tide was coming in and was fairly high, though the sea was relativelt calm and flat. There were a number of whitebaiters on the Flaxbourne River, a woman walking the beach picking up shells and stones, and just as I left, a couple arrived to head off on a walk to find the Ward Beach boulders.
I didn’t come away with many finds this morning, only 20. Five of them are featured below. The first two are limestone pebbles with trace fossils in them:
The next two are variations of white (probably volcanic) stones with dark crystals:
Finally, what could be a limestone pebble with a bright white vein along the edge of which are black dendrites, thin branching crystals, usually of some variety of manganese oxide:
Next stop, in two days’ time, is Kakanui’s Seadown Beach.
An Index to the Posts in this Series is here.
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