A Blog About Stone Gathering, Tumbling and Polishing, and Rocks and Landscapes, from New Zealand – With Musical Interludes (john.tumblestone@gmail.com)
I arrived at what I call Timaru South in South Canterbury at 12.40pm on a cool but sunny day. There was no-one else on the beach during the hour and three-quarters I was there, though a couple of walkers made their way along the track atop the cliffs. I walked for about a kilometre, starting in front of the carparking area and moving past Mutu Mutu Point towards Jack’s Point lighthouse.
View south from the carparking area at the end of Scarborough Road.
The first part of my fossick, with Mutu Mutu Point at the end.
Looking north, to Timaru.
The stretch of beach leading to Mutu Mutu Point.
The stretch of beach past Mutu Mutu Point, Jack’s Point lighthouse in far distance.
Container ship leaving Timaru Port.
Timaru South stones.
Timaru South stones.
Many of the stones on this beach tend to be a bit rougher than Kakanui and Gemstone Beach, for instance. In the past, I have especially found some nice green quartzites (see “T is for Timaru Today” in this Post) as well as a few hematite jaspers, one of which is the third entry in the TumbleStone Hall of Fame. Today, I found a few gorgeous jaspers and a wide range of quartzites, along with a couple of other nice stones. Seventeen of my finds are featured below.
The first is an excellent example of brecciated jasper with quartz:
Brecciated jasper with quartz, Timaru South.
A less stunning brecciated jasper but with a very intriguing vein along the lower part:
This next jasper has a lot of fine detail in it:
Timaru South jasper.
And a small very dark stone which could be a type of hematite jasper – though I debated with myself for a while whether it might be a quartzite instead:
Hematite jasper?
Many of the quartzites I found were brecciated, often with intricate detail, and they displayed a wide range of different colours. Some were quite pale, like these three:
A pale quartzite with thin green and red threads:
Some were mainly green or had green threads or patches:
Others were variations of yellow, orange or red:
Other side of stone.
Finally, neither a jasper nor a quartzite, this stone is of a type I have found a couple of times before. However, what it is remains a bit of a mystery to me. This one is a soft light green in colour but I have seen it darker. It is very attractive:
A list of my previous fossicks on this beach can be found here.
The next Post in this Series covers the first of two Ward Beach fossicks I made on my way home. An Index to the Series is available here.
Today I visited the beach at the end of Scarborough Road, just south of Timaru – for background on this beach, see Timaru South. I was accompanied by Sascha, a Timaru resident and fellow rockhound – see this Post (January 2022) about her wire wrapping of stones, and this Post (February 2022) about a previous fossick with her and her friend Pauline. We spent about 90 minutes at low tide on about 200 metres of the stony beach, between the end of Scarborough Road and Mutu Mutu Point (Jack’s Point).
Looking towards Mutu Mutu Point.
Looking back towards Scarborough Road, where we entered the beach.
Timaru South stones.
Timaru South stones.
We arrived just after 4pm. At some point I noticed one other person come onto the beach but apart from that we were the only ones there during this time – although there were some walkers and cyclists using the nearby track that runs parallel to the beach. We both found lots of interesting stones. I came away with more than enough for a couple of tumble barrels. Due to wet and cloudy weather, I was not able to take photos of my finds until Saturday morning.
The type of stone I most admire from Timary South is green quartzite. Today I collected about 15 of various sizes, and Sascha found some as well.
Most of the green quartzites I collected from Timaru South today.
A little red-brown in the green.
Some very pale green here.
Kind of stripey.
Some tiny darker patches.
A real mix of colours.
Lighter hued overall.
Among the other interesting finds was this pale green porphyry (I also picked up a smaller one like this):
Porphyry?
It could be a breccia/conglomerate but I have seen large white crystals in stones before, usually feldspar.
The tiny markings in this next stone are new to me. I suspect they are crystals, and the stone might have a quartz base, but I’m not sure:
The tiny markings in this stone caught my eye.
Other side of stone.
Another stone with tiny markings that caught my eye was this one, which I thought might be a kind of quartzite, but I’ve also not seen anything like it before:
Lots of tiny bits of quartz?
As is often the case in rockhounding, something not seen before crops up every now and then.
The next two stones have similar elongated shapes, the first being a very nice brecciated jasper, the second is maybe a creamy quartzite?? with interesting patches:
Brecciated jasper.
Quartzite?
Finally, two heavily veined stones, the first a quartzite, the second could also be a quartzite but it was the grid pattern that caught my eye:
Grid pattern in the large cream mineral patch.
My next fossick will be at Kakanui in North Otago. An Index to this Series is here.
Driving south today, I stopped off just south of Timaru to eat my egg sandwich on the beach. This is a beach that I don’t always visit when passing but I have found some interesting stones there when I do. See Timaru South for the beach’s location and other details. Today I also collected 32 stones as I walked south from the carpark at the end of Scarborough Road to Mutu Mutu Point and back.
Looking south from the carpark to Mutu Mutu Point. Timaru South beach.
Looking north from the carpark, Timaru city in the background.
On the beach, Timaru South.
Stones of Timaru South.
Below are featured eight of my finds. The first one is a type I have found on two or three other beaches as well, and I find its hue and composition very attractive. I think it might be a brecciated jasper. These stones tend to tumble polish well, partly because of the quartz in them.
Brecciated jasper?
Some nice dark quartzites can be found here, like this stone:
It’s been nine months since I last visited South Island beaches. So I am on my way south again. These days, I play this piece of music when starting a trip.
Time has come to go Pack your bags, hit the open road Our hearts just won’t die It’s the trip keeps us alive…–
I left Whanganui last Monday morning, nearly four days ago. First stop after the Cook Strait ferry was Ward Beach on Tuesday morning where I spent an hour just after high tide. It being summer, there were quite a few campers there, mainly camper-vans. There were also some dolphins in the bay in front of the carpark.
Looking south from Ward Beach in front of the carpark.
Looking back towards the carpark and the campers.
Flaxbourne River mouth – hardly any flow (it comes in from the right) and cut off from the sea.
How fishing boats are launched here.
When I arrived, these people were looking at the dolphins.
Quick glimpse of a couple of dolphins.
The Hectors dolphin typical dorsal fin.
I didn’t wander far on the beach but picked up a few interesting stones before hitting the road again.
Ward Beach stone. Maybe limestone with veins of quartz or chalcedony??
Similar stone, but with some dendrites.
Photographed dry, this is an intriguing stone with numerous tiny white crystals.
I find it hard to resist these trace fossil stones.
I visited two beaches on Wednesday. I stopped off first at Timaru South, at the end of Scarborough Road. I spent just over an hour walking south towards the lighthouse and back.
Looking north towards Timaru city.
Looking south, the part of the beach I walked along.
Some recent anti-erosion work.
I turned back well before the lighthouse.
Again, I found a few interesting stones, though most had been bashed about a bit – the resulting chips provide a challenge for the tumble polisher.
Very interesting quartzite!
Some gorgeous green stones appear on this beach.
Quartzite.
Small jasper.
Another quartzite.
A “spotty” stone.
On Wednesday afternoon I arrived in Kakanui, having driven 850 kiolometres from home, and spent some time at Seadown Beach. It has changed significantly since I was last here nine months ago. Large amounts of sand have been heaped up and most of the stones have been covered. I was there at a very low tide and there were scatterings of wet stones along the waves’ edge.
Seadown Beach in front of the parking area, February 2024 – a massive mound of sand.
The same beach two years ago.
The scattering of stones along the wave edge at Seadown Beach, February 2024..
To the south of the parking area, looking north, February 2024 – these rocks are usually inaccessible. The tide was very low.
I was especially alert for two types of stones here – the hard brown ones that contain bryozoa fossils and the softer lighter-coloured ones that I call “fossilised seafloor” stones. I found one of the former, a few of the latter, as well as some nice quartzites and jaspers.
Small stone with tiny bryozoa fossils.
One of the fossilised seas-floor stones.
Interesting quartzite.
Quartzite, I think.
Small dark jasper.
I also visited the beach further south of Kakanui to check out what stones were now to be found there, with some success.
I woke up on Thursday with two problems. My calf muscles were very sore from all the walking in soft sand I had done the previous day, and my mobile phone needed replacing. So I drove back to Timaru to sort the phone, and then rested up in the afternoon back in Kakanui instead of doing more fossicking.
For more information on Ward Beach, see here: on Timaru South, see here; on Kakanui’s Seadown Beach, see here.
The next Part of this Series is here. The Series Index is here.
Today it was reported that Tina Turner, Queen of Rock’n’Roll, had passed away in Switzerland after a long illness, aged 83. This has prompted me to write this Post in memory and respect, and to feature her song “The Best” to mark the addition of a third stone to TumbleStoneTwo’s Hall of Fame.
“The Best” is perhaps Tina Turner’s most well-known song in New Zealand and Australia as it was famously used to promote the Australian National Rugby League (NRL) competition in 1990 – see this YouTube video. Initially, in 1989 Turner’s “What You See Is What You Get” was used by the NRL – see this YouTube video. Its amazing success led to “The Best” campaign the following year. In 1993, Turner performed live at the NRL Grand Final. She then re-recorded “The Best” in 1993 with Australian musician Jimmy Barnes (video below). “It’s a song that has stood the test of time and is now synonymous with rugby league in this country” (ABC News). It helped to change the image and popularity of the NRL and was part of maybe the most successful sporting advertising campaign in Australia (NRL.com).
Tina Turner was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice, in 1991 with her then-husband Ike Turner and again in 2021 as a solo performer. TumbleStoneTwo’s Hall of Famecontains simply the best of the stones I have found and polished. The first inductee was an agatised fossil coral from Gemstone Beach. The second was a mossy jasper from Kakanui’s Seadown Beach. The third stone added today to the Hall of Fame is a hematite jasper I found on the beach at Timaru South in March 2022. It was just a bit too big for me to tumble so I asked my friend Tracey Kidd who lives near Christchurch if she would give it a go – she has a tumbling barrel larger than my largest 12lb one. Tracey went ahead and tumbled it successfully. The shine on it is so good that it is difficult to photograph without reflections interfering, even in bright direct sunlight.
The stone as found on the beach in March 2022.
The polished stone.
Close-up of polished stone.
The polished stone is 7.5 cm longand heavy – it weighs 20 grams. It has a few small holes in it as it started out in a bit of a mangled condition. But it polished very well, thanks to Tracey’s work.
This was Day Two of my trip south from Whanganui, on my way to Riverton Aparima. Day One is covered in this Post. In the late morning of Day Two I stopped at Timaru South before continuing on to Kakanui where I stayed for two nights. Just south of Timaru city, I spent 2 1/4 hours walking north from the end of Scarborough Road. I walked past the ruins of the wharf (there is another further on, I noticed) to the end of the recently built floodbank which protects the railway line.
Looking north from end of Scarborough Road towards Timaru – this is the beach section I walked.
Looking back south as I was about to turn around and return to my starting point.
Timaru South beach stones.
A cloud of seagulls just at my turnaround point.
A ship leaving Timaru Port.
Among the stones I look for on this beach are jaspers and green quartzites. I found a large hematite jasper here in March 2022 (see the end of this Post) which I gave to Tracey Kidd to polish (she did a great job with it). Today I found a similar but smaller hematite jasper, as well as a few other jaspers.
The hematite jasper I found today.
The larger hematite jasper I found in March 2022.
Another jasper.
Another jasper?
Different coloured quartzites can be found on this beach. But it is the green ones that I find the most attractive. Here are four I collected today.
I found three porphyry stones similar to a type of stone I have found at Kakanui, 100 kms to the south. The Kakanui one is darker – see this Post – and a UK rockhound noted it was very similar to a rhomb-porphyry from Norway.
Found today on Timaru South.
Found at Kakanui previously.
I then drove a couple of kilometres to the southern end of this beach, at the end of Ellis Road, where I met up with Tracey Kidd from Christchurch in her campervan. After we spent some time fossicking there, we drove to Kakanui. I had a brief early evening fossick at Seadown Beach as Tracey didn’t arrive until later. The next day, we spent some serious fossicking time there (see the next Post in this Series – the Index to the whole Series is here).
At the end of June, Lynley Uerata completed her doctoral degree with the successful submission of her thesis, “Insecure, Unpredictable, Hoping to Survive: Four Cases of Māori People Living Precariously in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand” (you can view it here). This followed a rigorous examination process taking a number of months. I first taught Lynley when she was an undergraduate student at the University of Waikato. She then took a graduate social research methods class with me, before asking me to be the supervisor of her Master’s thesis. I then acted as an informal advisor for her doctoral thesis, offering advice, discussing issues, and providing feedback on drafts of chapters. Throughout the time Lynley worked on her doctoral thesis, I also provided polished stones as “milestones” to recognise progress and provide encouragement – see “Twenty Thesis Milestones for Lynley“.
Milestones lie ahead of you on your journey somewhere, marking the passing distance, providing feedback that your end goal is getting closer. When reaching a milestone, finishing a phase of research or a draft of a chapter, then a sense of achievement and a feeling of satisfaction are gained. All milestones are also “stepping stones”, places to stand from which to launch forward. The final milestone on a journey is also the first stepping stone of the next journey.Of course, stepping stones also include the people a student mentions in their “Acknowledgements” and “References” – family and friends as well as supervisors and mentors and previous researchers (see Lynley’s “Acknowledgements” and “Preface” below, plus her thesis “Contents”).
Acknowledgements
Preface
Contents, page 1
Contents, page 2
Contents, page 3
The various senses of stepping stones are well captured by the Scottish folk singer Dougie MacLean in his song, “Stepping Stones”, where he states “We do not stand alone”, even when we are “out in the deep unknown”. I know Lynley prefers more lively music, but I also know she will appreciate a number of aspects of these lyrics (full lyrics can be found at the end of this Post).
As Lynley explains in her “Abstract” (Summary), the topic of her thesis focused on the struggle that a number of people face in New Zealand to live a stable and fruitful life. “A precarious way of life is characterised by interacting forms of precarity which embed insecurity, instability, and unpredictability in the everyday lives of real people. An account of the Māori experience of precarity since the pre-colonial era to the present-day is presented.” A doctoral thesis is a detailed and extensive report on a significant research project carried out over a number of years by the student. It is written for an academic audience (especially the examiners) and the use of theoretical and technical terminology often makes it hard to understand for many outside of the university setting. It is a major achievement and, as Lynley stated at the beginning of her “Acknowledgements”, it is very definitely “hard work”.
Most social science doctoral theses probably take about four to five years to complete, some much longer – Lynley’s took about twice that and my own took three times that (I tend to be a perfectionist and was also employed fulltime for much of it). One of the reasons for the length of time for Lynley’s doctoral work was the “engaged methodology” she chose. When studying poverty, you could restrict yourself to statistics. However, a better understanding of people and the complexity of their lives results when you engage with them over an extended period of time. Lynley spent time talking with a number of Māori people, visiting each of them a number of times and also interacting with them in different ways. This meant she could study only four people and their families, but she studied them in depth. A separate chapter is devoted to each of them, as “case studies” of individual experiences in the context of culture and economy and the highs and lows of daily life (below are the first pages of two of the case study chapters).
First page of a case study chapter
First page of another case study chapter
A doctoral thesis like this is a life achievement. It is the culmination of a lifetime’s interests, learning and effort. It expresses the student’s personality, skills and passions. So I am giving Lynley one polished Tumblestone as a milestone for each year of her life so far. These 36 stones, indigenous to Aotearoa/New Zealand, will be presented in three Posts. This Post features three stones from Timaru South and seven stones from Kakanui’s Seadown Beach. The second Post features 12 stones from Gemstone Beach and the third Post presents 14 stones from Slope Point. I had initially asked Lynley to choose stones she liked from the January 2022 Stone of the Day Series (see here) and she picked Stones 10, 12, 15, 19 and 22. I later decided to supplement these with additional polished stones.
THREE TIMARU STONES
Timaru South beach.
Timaru South beach.
Milestone #1.
Milestone #2.
Milestone #3.
Milestones one to three come off a beach just south of Timaru in South Canterbury (see Timaru South in TumbleStone2). Milestone #1 was January 2022 Stone of the Day #22, “a Timaru quartzite with windows”. A good social science thesis like Lynley’s provides a window into the lives of the people she studied. Milestone #1 is also unusual in that it has two contrastingly coloured sides.
One side of quartzite Milestone #1 – some red!. Timaru.
The largest “window”.
Other side of Milestone #1- no red!
The second Timaru stone, Milestone #2, maybe another quartzite, looks much better in person than in its photos. The photos fail to represent well its high polish, highlighting instead some of its tiny holes and rough patches. Or, at least, that’s what “I” see. The tumble polisher is like the thesis writer – we are aware of the imperfections of what we produce, and sometimes, if we are lucky, the “examiners” may pay more attention to the strong points, the shiny bits, not the rough bits.
Milestone #2. Timaru.
Other side of Milestone #2.
Milestone #3 is the smallest of the three Timaru stones. It has a distinctive silica band running diagonally through opaque yellow material – that and the other silica throughout the stone is a bit like the insights that hold together and illuminate the detailed arguments of a thesis.
Milestone #3. Timaru.
Other side of Milestone #3..
SEVEN KAKANUI STONES
Seadown Beach, Kakanui.
Seadown Beach, Kakanui.
Milestone #4.
Milestone #5.
Milestone #6.
Milestone #7.
Milestone #8.
Milestone #9.
Milestone #10.
Seal on Seadown Beach, Kakanui.
The next seven milestones were found on a beach not far from the small town of Kakanui in North Otago (see Kakanui’s Seadown Beach in TumbleStone2). Milestone #4 is a nicely polished quartzite of an unusual green hue, an interesting mix of dark and light variations:
Milestone #4. Kakanui.
Other side of Milestone #4.
Milestone #5 is a quartz-type stone of light caramel colour with interestingly shaped light-coloured bands and patches:
Milestone #5. Kakanui.
Other side of Milestone #5.
One of the more complex Kakanui stones is Milestone #6. I didn’t realise its beauty until I was working to produce the close-ups. These revealed a rich tapestry of colours and patterns, some suggestive of three-dimensional clouds. A good thesis, like Lynley’s, also has a complex and multi-layered character. This is one side of the stone:
Milestone #6. Kakanui.
This is the other side of the stone:
Other side of Milestone #6.
Milestone #7 is the largest of the 36 stones I am sending to Lynley, five centimetres long and 80 grams in weight. It has alternating bands of clear silica with a clay-like material, plus some thin dark lines. On one side, the first shown below, the largest clay-like band in noticeably indented, while the surface of the other side is much smoother. This stone stood out clearly when I found it, wet on the beach, the clay-like bands glistening brightly.
Milestone #7. Kakanui.
Other side of Milestone #7.
Sometimes stones have fossils in them, preserved remnants of creatures. What was once living is frozen in time, just like a thesis does in relation to what it describes and explains. Milestone #8 is an example of a type of stone I sometimes find on Kakanui’s Seadown Beach – it has been referred to as fossilised ancient seafloor (see “A Small Kakanui Fossil Seafloor Stone“). These stones often contain lots of tiny fossils, especially shells that once accumulated on the seabed. The close-up photos are especially good at revealing the complexity and variety in the stone.
Milestone #8. Kakanui.
Other side of Milestone #8.
The two final Kakanui milestones are both quartzites, but of different character and colour (see this Post, the entry for Wednesday 26 May 2021, for an account of some of the colour variation in Kakanui quartzites). Milestone #9 has the clouds of colour often seen in such stones, but instead of the more common yellow (see here), they are a brownish-red.
Milestone #9. Kakanui.
Another side of Milestone #9.
Another side of Milestone #9.
The colour of the Milestone #10 quartzite is mainly a light cream, and its clouds are more compact. There are also bands of clear silica within. Both Milestones #9 and #10 have the tiny clear crystals typical of these quartzites, which become especially apparent in the close-ups.
Milestone #10. Kakanui.
Other side of Milestone #10.
The next Post in this Series presents Milestones #11 to #22, a dozen tumble-polished stones from Gemstone Beach.
***** *****
“Stepping Stones” by Dougie MacLean
And so much time has gone since we worked out in these open fields With the hopes of generations pulled around us and a strength revealed And so much has been done since we ran around the Snaigow Wood Never knowing where our gentle lights might lead us, or if indeed they could
And we do not stand alone I know we stand with all the others Out in the deep unknown I know we stand upon their stepping stones
Sure and simple souls guarded round us as we worldly grew With nothing greater than what working days might show them, they gave us all they knew And though their dreams were small, oh their true and rural hearts were strong With an honest smile that burns from somewhere distant, they helped us all along
And we do not stand alone I know we stand with all the others Out in the deep unknown I know we stand upon their stepping stones
And in these silent hours when reflection lays our journey down And we think on all departed conversations, it’s such an earthy sound And so much time has gone since we worked out in these open fields With the hopes of generations pulled around us and a strength revealed
We do not stand alone I know we stand with all the others Out in the deep unknown… I know we stand upon their stepping stones
Third beach visit on my current South Island fossicking trip was a short stop just south of Timaru as I was driving from Birdlings Flat to Kakanui. I arrived at the Scarborough Road entrance to the Jack’s Point/Tuhawaiki Point Walkway at 1pm (Thursday 23 June) and spent an hour on the beach. It was seven degrees and sunny. The tide was very high and cut off the possibility of walking north very far.
Looking from the carparking area to Mutu Mutu Point. High tide.
Looking northwards towards Timaru city, the waves lapping the cliff.
Down on the beach, risky to walk northwards.
Down on the beach, looking south to Mutu Mutu Point. At the far end is the large seal making its way up the beach.
As I was walking south towards Mutu Mutu Point, a large seal arose from the sea at the Point and I decided it was wise not to get too close. I moved towards it a bit to take some photos and it made its way south and disappeared around behind the cliff. I did some fossicking, walking slowly back north, then looked up behind me to see the seal moving towards me. I continued to retreat. The seal then trundled another 30 metres or so, climbed up the foot of the cliff and rested there, soaking in the sun. A man and his dog appeared up above it, on the walkway. He sat and ate his lunch, the dog being a little restless, aware of the seal below.
The seal at Mutu Mutu Point.
Photo taken with zoom lens.
After disappearing briefly, the seal reappeared and started moving towards me, following the foot of the cliff. Looking up at the man and dog above.
The seal has arrived at its destination, the sunniest most sheltered place on the beach. Man and dog above.
I returned to my fossicking on the strip of beach available to me. I collected just a handful of stones, mainly quartzites.
A description of this beach, and further north and south, can be found here on TumbleStoneTwo. Next stop, Kakanui.
A shortened version of this Post first appeared in the Facebook Group “New Zealand Lapidary, Rocks, Minerals, Fossils”. The next Post in this Series features my first day’s fossick at Kakanui’s Seadown Beach. The first Post in this Series is here. A Series Index is here.
It was in June 2021 that I first visited Timaru South beach, at the Scarborough Road end, on my way south on a South Island fossicking trip. On my way back north, I stopped off at the Ellis Road end of the beach, on a foggy South Canterbury day. The following are Posts on TumbleStone Blog describing my visits to the beach to date, listed in chronological order:
Succulents growing atop the cliffs and drooping down their eroding face, Timaru South beach.
Looking towards Mutu Mutu Point, Timaru South beach.
The walkway that runs along the cliffs behind the southern part of Timaru South beach.
I had heard about people fossicking on Timaru beaches, and Patiti Point had been mentioned. I couldn’t find any reference to Timaru in any of the few sources I had about fossicking in New Zealand. So in June 2020, when passing through Timaru, I set out to find the Patiti Point beach and take a look for myself. A short fossick turned up a few interesting stones but I felt they were few and far between and not always as smooth as I would have preferred (see Day 21 in this Post). Over the following year I saw some Posts of interesting Timaru area stones on the Facebook Group “New Zealand Lapidary, Rocks, Minerals, Fossils”, and someone mentioned Scarborough Road beach. I made my first visit to that area, a kilometre or so to the south of Patiti Point, on 5 June 2021, and found some stones that I really liked. Among the quartzites to be found here are some really nice green ones. Among the jaspers are some gorgeous hematites, and I have also found petrified wood.So far (up until February 2025), I have visited that Timaru South stretch of beach ten times. Note that beaches often change with each tide so some of the details of the beach and its stones in the description below may no longer be the same.
What I call Timaru South is a stretch of stony beach that starts near Redruth Park, just under one kilometre south of Patiti Point, and runs southwards a further four and a half kilometres or so, past the Jack’s Point lighthouse to the Ellis Road Beach carpark (see the two maps below left).
Along the northern part of this beach, from just south of Timaru to Mutu Mutu Point, the waves require significant alertness on the part of the fossicker as they break closer to shore than at the other beaches I tend to visit. There is little time between the sound of the breaking wave and its swift movement up the beach, because of the steep (if short) slope. Fossickers focus visually on stones, keeping an ear out for waves, and we often walk along the waves’ edge, making us vulnerable to wet legs from late breaking waves. Another safety issue relates to the cliffs along the back of much of the beach. These cliffs are steep, slippery and too high to climb should the high tide press a fossicker against them. It is best to avoid high tide for most of the southern three-quarters of the beach.
Timaru South beach stones.
Large jasper stone at Mutu Mutu Point, Timaru South beach. Left on beach as too large to tumble polish.
Small stone, Timaru South beach.
Greem quartzite, Timaru South beach.
Hematite jasper, Timaru South beach.
The most northern part of the Timaru South beach can be accessed from where Scarborough Road meets The Parade. Scarborough Road turns off State Highway One about one kilometre south of Timaru. The southern part of the beach is also accessible from the end of Ellis Road, a further kilometre or so south from the Scarborough Road turnoff. I usually park at the intersection of Scarborough Road and The Parade. On Google Maps, this is called “Jacks Point Surfspot” (see photo above, second from right). From here, you can walk across the railway onto the beginning of the Jack’s Point/Tuhawaiki Point Walkway. The walkway runs south atop the cliffs above the southern section of the beach, ending up at the Ellis Road Beach carpark, a 45 minutes walk. About 100 metres after crossing the railway, you can slip down onto the beach at the point where the track is closest to the beach and dips the lowest (see photos below).
Viewing the parking area from further along the walkway.
The railway crossing.
Beach entry is from where the track is closest to the beach.
The beach entry, moving off the track.
Once on the beach, you can go either left (north) or right (south). To the left takes you towards Timaru, past the remains of an old wharf. A large bank of rocks has recently been constructed at the back of the beach, starting near the old wharf, to protect the likes of the railway line from coastal erosion. I have not yet fossicked much past the wharf.
The view north towards Timaru from the parking area on The Parade.
The view of the beach below from the parking area on The Parade.
Looking north after walking onto the beach.
Stones on the part of the beach moving towards the old wharf.
Nearer the old wharf.
The old wharf with the new rock wall behind.
The old wharf.
Looking back south from near the old wharf.
Looking towards the parking area on The Parade.
Timaru South stones, near the old wharf.
At the beach entry, to the right takes you initially to what is marked on the topo map as Mutu Mutu Point, just under 300 metres away. Here you get waves coming from two directions and a small surf break. It is about 1,200 metres from Mutu Mutu Point to the lighthouse, and another 400 metres to the Ellis Road Beach carpark. There are usually lots of stones right along the beach from the entry point to Mutu Mutu Point.
Looking towards Mutu Mutu Point from the beach entry point.
On a dull day, from a bit further distance.
Stones on this part of the beach.
Looking back to the beach entry point.
Timaru South beach stones.
Mutu Mutu Point waves with surfer.
Looking down on Mutu Mutu Point from the walkway.
Mutu Mutu Point.
Stones at Mutu Mutu Point.
Looking from Mutu Mutu Point south towards the lighthouse.
North of Mutu Mutu Point, large patches of sand also appear across the beach and at times the stones can be scattered more thinly. The beach widens out as you move south and in a couple of places the cliffs disappear. I have twice encountered seals along this stretch. You can catch a glimpse of the lighthouse above you, and eventually you will reach the Ellis Road Beach carpark. The day I visited there in late June 2021 was foggy, as you can see in some of the photos below. I have fossicked a little south of the Ellis Road Beach carpark, and I found scatterings of stones to continue there. Note that the last part of Ellis Road to the carpark is gravel.
The view south from near Mutu Mutu Point.
Seal near Mutu Mutu Point. I turned around to avoid disturbing it further.
Stones south of Mutu Mutu Point.
Cliff backed beach, south of Mutu Mutu Point.
Jack’s Point lighthouse.
Looking back towards the lighthouse area.
Ellis Road Beach carpark is in the far distance.
The beach getting closer to Ellis Road Beach carpark.
Ellis Road Beach carpark.
Ellis Road Beach carpark in the fog.
A YouTube video that has drone footage of the Timaru South beach from the Scarborough Road/Parade intersection to beyond the lighthouse is here.
