A Blog About Stone Gathering, Tumbling and Polishing, and Rocks and Landscapes, from New Zealand – With Musical Interludes (john.tumblestone@gmail.com)
I reached Seadown Beach, just north of Kakanui, at 2pm this afternoon after a long drive from the south coast of Southland. It was raining during the first hour or two of the drive but scattered showers then dominated. At Seadown Beach, the tide was high but there were a lot of stones high up the beach, wet from the waves or from recent rain. This was especially the case among the rocks at the south end of the beach, where the stones have been piled higher than I have seen before.
Seadown Beach, Kakanui.
Looking north along Seadown Beach.
There were good pickings at the south end of the beach.
The sea must have recently been turning the stones over and churning them up because I had a very productive hour-long fossick. I found an amazing range of quartzites but a number of other very colourful and patterned stones as well, plus a piece of petrified wood.
This is the petrified wood, a relatively rare find for me on Seadown Beach:
Petrified wood.
Other side of petrified wood.
There are links to other specimens of petrified wood I have found on this beach here.
I think this next stone is what is known locally as limonite prase:
One side of this stone looks like plain quartz but the other side is far from plain:
The plain side.
The more interesting side.
A colourful orange stone with different patterns on different sides:
Another orange find, this one with some brecciation (tiny fragmentation):
These are seven of the quartzites I collected, quite a diverse lot:
I kept my eye open for the brown stones that sometimes contain tiny bryozoan fossils – this is the best candidate but I can’t clearly see such fossils in it:
And finally, an interesting mix of colours:
I return to Seadown Beach tomorrow.An Index to this Series is here.
In Riverton Aparima, the “Rocks Highway” ends at the Back Beach but there is a walking track over the dunes to another beach with stones. I call it The Beach Past the Back Beach. Some details about this beach can be found in the entry for Day 14, Tuesday 2 March 2021 in this Post. I arrived there about 1pm and spent an hour looking among the rocks at the eastern end of the beach.
At the top of the track over the dunes, looking down on The Beach Past the Back Beach.
Stones on The Beach Past the Back Beach.
At the eastern end of the beach are lots of rocks with lots of pockets of stones, some quite large.
A while after I arrived, a husband and wife and three young children with their grandfather also appeared on the beach. I chatted with them for a while, explaining what I was doing and showing them different stones. They were a Southland family enjoying an outing, and they mentioned they also visited Gemstone Beach. Liam, the husband, walked away and then came back with a small stone to give to me. It turned out to be a poppy jasper!
Liam’s small poppy jasper.
Other side of Liam’s small poppy jasper.
I told Liam I would send him some of my polished Gemstone Beach stones once I got home, including a poppy jasper.
Twelve other stones I found this afternoon… The first is an interesting partially-transparent orange one with tiny inclusions:
Small orange stone.
Held up to light.
And a small opaque black stone with orange crystals:
This next stone appears to be a colourful breccia:
Breccia.
These tiny elongated crystals caught my eye:
A green quartzite with some intriguing thin veins:
Quartzite.
The vein running across this stone also attracted my attention:
At one point I looked down and saw this stone grinning up at me – a grey banded argillite, with a drooped sediment layer and a small stress line:
Banded argillite.
There are usually a few trace fossils in argillite along this stretch of the coast – this stone was the best I found here this afternoon:
Another small stone containing some hydrogrossular garnet.
These are very rare on Riverton Aparima beaches but the occasional one can be found – they are, of course, much more common on Gemstone Beach.
I also found another small poppy jasper to keep company with Liam’s find – though this one is not as well formed:
Poppy jasper.
Other side of poppy jasper.
And the, taking my last step off the beach, I saw this stone with a couple of red spots – it could be a third poppy jasper but again it is not well formed:
Poppy jasper?
Other side of stone.
My next fossick is at Kakanui on my way back north. An Index to this Series is here.
I visited the Back Beach for an hour after a rainy morning – the forecast storm turned out not to be too bad for the South. When I was a boy, our family had summer holidays at Riverton Aparima so a visit here again has nostalgic overtones.
Looking out towards Stewart Island Rakiura.
Back Beach stones, Riverton Aparima. Taken on phone camera.
Looking east, towards Bluff in the far distance.
Looking west.
The small cove at the western end of the beach.
Not long after I arrived on the beach, I picked up a small dark red jasper – and it turned out to be a poppy jasper!
Back Beach poppy jasper.
I found another one, with slightly bigger orbs, towards the end of the fossick:
Poppy jasper #2.
Other side of poppy jasper #2.
The only other time I’ve found poppy jaspers here was in a September 2024 fossick when I found two and my brother-in-law found one.
When looking at the photos of my finds in this Post, keep in mind that because of the cloudy weather we’re having, I was unable to take photos of my finds until the next day. This was still under challenging light conditions early in the morning, and some of the images reflect those difficulties.
A very dark brecciated jasper I found, in a kind of cylindrical shape:
Small brecciated jasper.
A different type of stone with a similar shape (not sure of its identification):
There are quartzites along this coast:
Quartzite #1.
Quartzite #2.
A bright orange stone which looks like a kind of quartz (maybe also a quartzite?):
A small polymictic breccia, a type of stone that can also be found along the south coast, including Gemstone Beach – “polymictic” means that it contains fragments from a number of different rocks:
Polymictic breccia.
Finally, this dark brown stone looked interesting to me:
My next fossick is over the hill, at The Beach Past the Back Beach. An Index to this Series is here.
This is my fourth and final visit to Gemstone Beach for this trip. Chrissy and I arrived there around 2pm, just after low tide. There were quite a few people here today – there were two campervans and six cars in the carpark when we arrived. Again the beach was very sandy, though there was a good scattering of stones along the wave edge in front of the carpark.
In front of the carpark.
Two horses and a dog by the Taunoa Stream.
We made our way down to the far (northwestern) end of the Waimeamea River lagoon before turning back just after 3.30pm. Tiring from a heavy load of finds, we made it back to the car an hour later. We saw a lot fewer trace fossil stones than previously, and hydrogrossular garnets were still few and far between.
Looking back at a bunch of people in front of the carpark.
Chrissy by a seepage in front of the Waimeamea River lagoon.
It was here, down at the Waimeamea River lagoon., that I found a large pink stone.
Because of the cloudy weather we’re having, I was unable to take photos of my finds until two days later – and even then, the light conditions were challenging. The images of stones below reflect those difficulties.
One of my most intriguing and enigmatic finds today was made early on in front of the carpark. It kind of looks like quartz, which is what I expected it to be. But it kind of looks like chalcedony (agate) too. After careful examination, and seeing it both wet and dry, I’m leaning towards chalcedony. But this is a very rare find along this coast, as far as I know, and I have found only one like it last August at McCracken’s Rest.
Looking a bit like quartz when wet.
Looks more like an agate when dry.
Dry view of the “top”.
Wgen held up to the light.
The largest of my finds today also poses an identification question. This large pink stone appeared in front of me down near the Waimeamea River lagoon:
The pink side of the large pink stone.
Some dark mineral apparent in this side.
The first side (above) was showing when I found it – it is completely pink, so I thought “thulite”. Turning it over, however, there is some dark mineral in it, maybe an oxide, that makes the stone look like “rhodonite”. I’m leaning towards the latter ID, on the basis of the visual evidence.
A little later on, I found a much smaller version of a similar stone with a similar question about it, and interestingly it contains some brecciation:
Small pink stone with some brecciation.
Other side, with some dark material.
I found four stones this afternoon that are or could be poppy jaspers. The first three definitely are:
Poppy jasper #1.
Poppy jasper #2.
One side of poppy jasper #2.
Poppy jasper #3.
The fourth one is more cryptic – the orbs are not clear but there are hints of them here and there:
Some orbicular features in this jasper.
Other side of stone.
Four different kinds of quartzites (maybe) I found today – the first is green, the second is red, the third is more subdued in colour but is not unlike some I have found at Kakanui, and the fourth I am least sure about because it has larger fragments of material in it than usual:
Green quartzite.
Red quartzite.
Different kind of quartzite.
Quartzite? Certainly epidote is present.
Three orange stones, no doubt coloured by the presence of iron oxide:
Small bright orange stone.
A type of quartz , with a white end.
Finally, the only interesting hydrogrossular garnet I found this afternoon:
Hydrogrossular garnet.
My next fossick will be at Riverton Aparima. An Index to this Series is here.
When I arrived at Gemstone Beach for a solo fossick at 10am, there was a lot of fog along the coast, and the temperature was 12 degrees. That eventually lifted after about 45 minutes. I spent two and three-quarter hours on the beach, by which time the sun had raised the temperature to 17 degrees.
Fog on Gemstone Beach, looking towards Fiordland.
Looking towards Monkey Island.
The large patch of stones just over the Taunoa Stream.
After I had made my way down the beach, the fog started to lift.
I chatted with a number of people picking up stones – some were from overseas and some were locals. They included a young couple who live in Wellington though they come from Scotland, an older couple from Cromwell, and two women from the United States, friends of Chrissy’s. Sometimes they showed me their stones and I talked about their identification, and sometimes they asked what I had found. I probably talked to eight of the 12 people there. The tide was low this morning and there was still a lot of sand on the beach. Just over the Taunoa Stream was a large patch of stones that people tended to spend time at. I walked down to the Waimeamea River which has been blocked from running to the sea – the waves had piled up stones there. Some seepages had formed as the water made it way in places through the stones.
The stones (and sand) just before reaching the Waimeamea River.
Seepages of water emerging from the stones in front of the Waimeamea River lagoon.
Seepages.
The bank of stones down near the Waimeamea River lagoon.
This is where the Waimeamea River was flowing, when I was here six days ago.
The Stream with no Name, near the carpark, was flowing very low and disappearing into the sand before reaching the sea.
Fourteen of my finds are featured below. The first is the largest hydrogrossular garnet I have found so far on this trip – these have not been showing up at all except for the very occasional quite small one. I found this large bashed-about garnet down near the Waimeamea River:
Hydrogrossular garnet.
Other side of hydrogrossular garnet.
It’s almost as if the garnet is wrapped around some black rock.
My most spectacular find this morning is another of those small jaspers that come to life with close-up photography. It proved difficult to get very clear images but the following give some idea of the amazing world in there:
Small jasper with amazing details.
Another side of the small jasper.
Slightly different view of small jasper.
The “bottom” of the small jasper.
It almost looks as if a tiny pen has made a tracery of lines and filled in patches – and the small white areas are attention-grabbing.
Next is another small red jasper (I found a couple more as well). In this one, the tiny white circular patch just above centre caught my eye on the beach – but the photos reveal a lot more:
It was the small trace in the lower right that caught my eye.
Well-defined traces in a small argillite stone.
An amygdaloidal stone with some bright red amygdales:
Amygdaloidal stone.
Amygdaloidal stones are also known locally as volcanic bubble-infilled stones. They originate in molten magma which may contain dissolved gas that forms bubbles in the rock. These tiny bubble holes then fill with mineral-rich fluids which leave behind deposits of minerals such as quartz, chalcedony, calcite and zeolites. The resultant “spots” are called “amygdales” (also “amygdules”), coming from the Latin and Greek words for almond, reflecting the almond-shape of many such in-filled holes. However, amygdales can also be round and some can be irregular shapes. Further Gemstone Beach amygdaloidal stones can be seen in this Post, Section 4, Stones W30 to W42.
A small stone with a very busy composition – it looks like a polymictic breccia, a stone full of tiny angular fragments from a variety of sources, some of which look to be mudstone/argillite:
A small breccia?
Other side of stone.
Next are five of this afternoon’s finds where the predominant colour is green, most often due to the presence of epidote – the first two and fourth are probably quartzite, some have quartz veins or patches, and some brecciation can be seen at times:
Quartzite.
Another quartzite.
Not sure what this is.
A very light green stone.
Some brecciation in this stone.
Finally a grey stone with tiny black and white crystals and/or fragments:
A severe storm is heading our way, bringing heavy rain and strong winds over the next few days. Some parts of New Zealand are under a Red Warning – significant impacts and disruption are expected. The stormy waves will stir the beach stones up (and move sand around) but may make fossicking uncomfortable.
“There’s A Storm A-Coming” by Richard Hawley
There’s a storm a-coming, you’d better run There’s a storm coming, goodbye to the sun There’s a storm a-coming, you’d better run boy run You’d better run
There’s a ship that’s sailing out in the night There’s a heart that’s breaking, I think it’s mine There’s a storm a-coming, you’d better run boy run You’d better run
Every little part of you is a miracle of molecules Every little thing you do so sad, in the end Oh, in the end
There’s a ship that’s sailing out in the night There’s a heart that’s breaking – I think it’s mine There’s a storm a-coming, you’d better run boy run You’d better run
The next Post in this Series is my fourth and final visit to Gemstone Beach on this trip. An Index to the Series is here.
Today Chrissy introduced me to Tiwai Beach, a new fossicking area for me. It is located on the south side of the Tiwai Peninsula, across the water from the town of Bluff (which is about 25 kms south of Invercargill). Awarua Bay lies to the north of the peninsula. Nearby, at the end of the peninsula, at Tiwai Point, is the New Zealand Aluminium Smelter, which controls access to the beach. A permit and gate key are required so we first stopped at the smelter reception for this.
The smelter was opened in 1971 after the Manapouri power station was built to supply it with electricity. It is the largest electricity consumer in New Zealand. Wikipedia reports that the smelter uses about one third of the total electricity consumed in the South Island and 13% of the total electricity nationwide, equivalent to around 680,000 households. Wikipedia also covers economic and environmental issues related to the smelter.
Tiwai Beach is a long sweeping strip running along the south of Tiwai Pensinsula, backed by a low cliff. Chrissy and I spent just over two hours there, arriving at noon, low tide time. It was a sunny afternoon, about 17 to 18 degrees, with a light breeze. A couple of fishermen catching gurnard were the only other people there.
Looking east along Tiwai Beach.
Looking west, towards Bluff.
Chrissy on Tiwai Beach. Lots of sand but enough stones.
We walked westwards along the water’s edge where there was a good scattering of interesting stones – much larger patches lay further up the beach. Way up ahead lies a large white navigation aid for Bluff Harbour, and we turned around maybe 50 metres before reaching it.
Navigation aid in the distance as we move along the beach.
The stones on the beach are of a good range of sizes, with the biggest being too large for tumble polishing. They tend to be bashed around a bit – often one side may be relatively smooth but the other will have chunks out of it. Nevertheless Chrissy and I managed to select enough to make our backpacks heavy. Fifteen of my finds are featured below.
Tiwai Beach.
Tiwai Beach stones.
Tiwai Beach stones.
White quartz is the dominant stone on Tiwai Beach – from opaque whites to transparent varieties, including smokey quartz. I collected a number of these, especially small ones useful in a tumbling barrel. There is also a wide range of quartzites here, a lot of them with green or grey-green minerals:
Green quartzite.
Green quartzite.
Grey-green quartzite. Same colour as some argillites.
Quartzite.
Quartzite.
Other quartzites have layers or clouds of a creamy pink or white.
Quartzite with creamy pink mineral..
Other side of stone.
Interesting patterns in this quartzite.
Other side of stone.
White mineral clouds in quartzite.
Other side of stone.
There was the occasional yellow quartzite similar to those I have found on Seadown Beach in Kakanui (and able to be found along the east coast of the South Island up to Birdlings Flat).
Yellow quartzite.
We came across some very nice dark red jaspers on Tiwai Beach, often with quartz veins. This was the biggest that I put in my bag:
Jasper with quartz.
Other side of stone.
Unexpectedly, I happened upon two rare small poppy jaspers today – the first below was half-buried in sand, the second lying on top of other stones:
Poppy jasper with green vein.
Other side of poppy jasper.
Poppy jasper #2.
Other side of poppy jasper.
Dark rhyolites are present at Tiwai Beach, rather plain and not as interesting as Slope Point ones, though I saw one banded rhyolite. Green argillite is present but rare – Chrissy found the only trace fossil argillite stone we came across and passed it to me.
Finally, three of my other finds, not able to be identified by myself with any certainty but their colours and patterns caught my eye:
Could also be a quartzite?
Small, dark and colourful.
Maybe rhyolite?
Part 10 reports on my third visit to Gemstone Beach this trip. An Index to this Series is here.
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.
Papatotara Beach stones.
The 22 stones I collected.
Looking down towards the beach from near where I am staying.
The track about to get steeper.
Seagull over Papatotara Beach.
Looking west along Papatotara Beach, towards the Fiordland mountains.
Looking east along Papatotara Beach, towards the Waiau River mouth and Gemstone Beach.
I turned around at the teepee-like driftwood structure.
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:
Small dark red jasper, with some hematite.
The second small featured find is a more subtle red, and is most likely a quartzite:
Small quartzite.
The next is what I call an iron-stained “sugar quartz” – some of these tumble polish well but others can be crumbly:
What I call a “sugar quartz”.
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:
Probably quartz, though looks like an agate.
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:
Opaque white hydrogrossular garnet.
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.
Chrissy and I visited Gemstone Beach again, arriving just after 3pm, leaving around 5.30pm. It was cloudy, 14 degrees, with a light breeze, and the tide was going out. When we arrived, there were six cars and three campervans in the carpark. It was still a very sandy beach, like it was two days ago, but a couple more patches of stones had been exposed by the waves, one of them just over the Taunoa Stream. We walked down to the Waimeamea River again, this time fording it and spending maybe 15 minutes on the other side.
People on Gemstone Beach when we arrived.
A patch of stones on the other side of the Taunoa Stream.
Looking back towards the carpark.
The Waimeamea River, similar in flow to the Taunoa Stream today.
On our way back, just after recrossing the Waimeamea River, we stopped and chatted with Robyn and Judy who we also met two days ago.
Ten of my finds are featured below. The types of stones we saw on the beach this afternoon were similar to those we saw two days ago. There were very few hydrogrossular garnets and Chrissy found only one very small poppy jasper. Again, there were quite a few trace fossil stones. I did find a number of stones with interesting textures. The most intriguing has spots in it – which is why I spotted it – and the close-up photos suggest it is a spherulitic rhyolite. According to John Farndon’s (2015) book, “Illustrated Guide to Rocks & Minerals”, spherulitic rhyolite originates in “trapped gas pockets of volatile vapours” which develop into “balls of radiating needle-like crystals of quartz and feldspar” (page 64).
Perhaps spherulitic rhyolite.
Other side of stone.
See Strekeisen for a relatively techical account of spherulites, along with some great photos and diagrams. This stone is only the fourth spherulitic rhyolite I have found on Gemstone Beach in nine years. In Southland, it is a type of stone much more associated with Slope Point.
Next are three stones with very interesting textures that become apparent in the close-up photos:
Interesting texture #1.
Interesting texture #2.
Interesting texture #3.
When I put stones like this in my bag, I don’t always know how they will look upon closer examination. These three proved to be worthwhile and intriguing specimens.
This afternoon’s best trace fossil stone was found by Chrissy who kindly gave to me, a grey argillite with clearly defined traces in it:
Traces fossils in argillite.
Other side of stone.
I found this unusual one myself – I’ve not see a trace fossil like this before:
Trace fossil in argillite.
I came across only one small nice hydrogrossular garnet, along with a handful of much smaller and much less interesting ones:
Hydrogrossular garnet.
A small colourful quartzy find – white with bright orange, and some brecciation:
Colourful find.
Slightly different perspective on this stone.
A veined green quartzite with a dark irregular central vertical band:
Quartzite.
Finally, I always like good specimens of black igneous stones with small white crystals (as in Section 5 in this Post), This find is one of the larger ones I have collected:
I am staying with Chrissy and Mike, and Ohla the dog, at Papatotara, a few kilometres west of Orepuki’s Gemstone Beach. Today, Chrissy and I spent three hours there, on a cloudy afternoon with a light breeze, the temperature being around 16 to 17 degrees. There were four vehicles in the carpark when we arrived, with two more arriving just after we got there. The beach in front of the carpark was predominantly sand, with just a couple of patches of stones on either side of The Stream With No Name (marked as “Un-named Stream” on the map below – see this Post for more on the beach and its location).
Gemstone Beach. Source of base map = mapcarta.com
A sandy Gemstone Beach, looking north west.
Looking back towards the carpark.
You can always spot stones in the Taunoa Stream. Today it was running low and was easily searched and then forded.
Chrissy looking at stones in the bed of the Taunoa Stream.
Looking up the Taunoa Stream towards a recent new house.
Normally, masses of stones appear on the beach not far on the other side of the Taunoa, as you walk along the Te Waewae Bay coast, but that was not the case today. We struck more and even more sand for a few hundred metres, with only tiny patches of stones along the base of the cliff backing the beach. The large area of stones didn’t start until maybe three hundred metres before the Waimeamea River – see the description of “Section Three” in this Post for more about this 1.5 kilometre stretch of beach. (I’ve included Chrissy in some photos to provide a sense of scale – thanks to her for agreeing to this.)
For a long stretch of the beach, only small patches of stones at the base of cliffs.
Chrissy at the “cut” in the cliffs, which has had up to a metre of sand washed into it.
Exposed stones appeared as we got closer to the Waimeamea River mouth.
We decided to turn back at the Waimeamea River mouth. I think we could have forded it if we wanted to go further, but our backpacks were getting heavy.
The usual masses of stones, close to the Waimemea River lagoon.
Chrissy making her way slowly along the beach.
The mouth of the Waimeamea River. Not too deep today.
Bank of stones on left, dry Waimeamea River lagoon full of driftwood to the right.
The beginning of the wet Waimeamea River lagoon area, the river mouth is centre left.
Chrissy in the distance, looking for stones at the Waimeamea River mouth.
Te Waewae Bay waves.
Te Waewae Bay coast beach stones.
Te Waewae Bay coast beach stones.
It turned out that our backpacks became quite heavy. It was hard going trudging across the metres and metres of sand back to the carpark. When we got there, we met Robyn Bennett and her friend Judy. Robyn had messaged me about a week ago, having read TumbleStone Blog as well as some of my posts in the Facebook Group “New Zealand Lapidary, Rocks, Minerals, Fossils”. She had told me they would be coming to Gemstone Beach at the beginning of this week, so it was good that we were all there at the same time. We had a good chat and showed each other some of our finds, as rockhounds do.
This afternoon’s fossick featured trace fossil stones – I kept on coming across them, and some were very good specimens or unusual for some reason. They made up maybe one-third of the stones I put in my bag. And Chrissy always gives me good ones she comes across. We saw very few hydrogrossular garnets and I found only one tiny poppy jasper. But there are always interesting stones that crop up when time is spent along this part of the Te Waewae Bay coast. Fourteen of my finds are featured below.
First, the big and the tiny. This is the largest of the trace fossil stones I collected, with the longest trace I have seen for some time. And following it is a tiny poppy jasper fragment I found, which still looks amazing in close-up:
Long trace fossil in argillite.
Tiny fragment of poppy jasper, with hematite.
Green stones can often be found on this beach. Two green-coloured stones I picked up, one light hued, one dark:
Complex structure and intense green veins.
Other side of stone.
Brecciated, black veins.
Other side of stone.
A pink find, most likely a rhodonite, similar to one featured in an August 2025 fossick:
Probably rhodonite.
Other side of stone.
This next stone is very unusual, with a mineral of light cream colour set in translucent quartz(?). In addition, there is a smearing of dark brown iron oxide across it:
Interesting colours and structure.
Other side of stone.
Another unusual stone, of mottled black and dark red:
Unusual mottling in this stone.
A stone with fragments of different colours, maybe a breccia?
Breccia?
Finally, six more trace fossil in argillite stones I collected today, showing some of the diversity of this type of stone – variations in colour of stone, colour of trace, and shape and size of trace:
Trace fossil in argillite, the most common green colour of host stone..
Grey trace fossil stone.
Light grey stone, very light grey traces.
Many tiny trace fossils.
Black argillite stone.
Trace fossils in a banded argillite?
Gemstone Beach and nearby Te Waewae Bay coast never disappoints me. I’ve always found at least one unusual and interesting stone, usually many more. Even if, as today, I have to walk a ways to find them.
The next Post in this Series reports on another visit to Gemstone Beach, two days later. An Index to this Series is here.
On Monday 9 March 2026 I left home in Whanganui to catch a Bluebridge Cook Strait ferry in Wellington. I stopped that night in Ward in Marlborough and visited Ward Beach twice the next day. I then drove south and fossicked on a small number of beaches before reaching the south coast of Southland. I started my return journey on 29 March, reaching home on 3 April. As usual, I documented the beaches I visited and the stones I collected for tumble polishing. In this Index, you can click on a link to be taken to the relevant Post. The photos above each link give you an idea of the beaches and the stones that feature in that Post.
*** ***
Looking back towards the carpark and camping area, from the south.
