Papatotara Beach is 15 kilometres northwest along the Te Waewae Bay coast from Gemstone Beach, lying west of the Waiau River mouth. I’m staying there with Chrissy and Mike and took the opportunity this afternoon to spend an hour looking for stones.
There is not the diversity and quality of stones here as can be seen on Gemstone Beach but every now and then an interesting find can be made. I collected 22 stones, seven of which are featured below.
The first is a gorgeous small dark red hematite jasper with some bright patches:
The second small featured find is a more subtle red, and is most likely a quartzite:
The next is what I call an iron-stained “sugar quartz” – some of these tumble polish well but others can be crumbly:
I found a small stone that looks a lot a waterline agate, the kind of thing that you find on Birdlings Flat near Christchurch. Beach agates are very very rare along this coast, and I suspect this is actually quartz:
The occasional hydrogrossular garnet has been found at Papatotara Beach. I picked up this opaque white one which has a nice light-hued pink/orange vein:
Finally, a couple of quartzy stones I collected, one with a vein of light green epidote, the other being more textured in character:
The next Post in this Series reports on a visit to Tiwai Beach, near Bluff. An Index to this Series is here.