June-July 2022 Fossicking Trip: 14) Gemstone Beach, Day Seven

The fordable Waimeamea River today.

Maybe 500 metres past the river, the beach has a long stretch of steep cliffs behind it. The onrushing waves can feel very threatening, especially as the tide gets higher.

The steep cliffs.

Too steep and slippery to climb.

I arrived at Gemstone Beach this morning (Tuesday 5 July) just before low tide. I walked reasonably quickly (with a few distracting stones on the way) down to the Waimeamea River to check if it was fordable because of the waves being further down the beach. It was, which meant I had time enough to fossick well beyond the river and get back to cross it before the waves of the high tide became a problem.

It is an eerie feeling once you get past where the Waimeamea River first comes out of the hills – a roaring sea on one side of the narrow stone beach, high slippery cliffs on the other. There is a very long stretch of the beach like this, a number of kilometres, where high cliffs are right at the back – the driftwood is piled up right at the foot of the cliffs, so you know the high tide reaches there (see the photos at the top of this Post). It is not a place to be an hour or two before high tide, the prospect of being trapped being quite real.

I managed to spend four hours on the beach today, walking a few hundred metres further than on previous days. It turned out to be a hydrogrossular garnet day. Before today, I had found maybe only a handful of that type of stone per day. Once I was past the river today, however, small hydrogrossular garnets appeared, and then a few larger ones as well. And this was partly over a section of the beach I had visited before. I was able to collect a nice diversity of types and sizes (photos of the range of types of hydrogrossular garnets can be found here).

I first thought this was a piece of broken glass – turned out to be a battered hydrogrossular garnet.

This one looks very much like quartz but it has the waxy feel of hydrogrossular garnet.

Side 1 of this stone.

Side 2.

Maybe the third-largest hydrogrossular garnet I found today.

Some of the small hydrogrossular garnets that appeared on the beach.

About one-third the way through the fossick, I was thinking that today’s Post could simply feature the hydrogrossular garnets. But then I started to find other types of stones that deserved to be shown as well. And I kept finding them right up until I reached the carpark. Some of them are among the best I have found on this trip.

I found this about 400 metres from the carpark, on my return there. I initially thought it was artificial because of the colour. An amazing little jasper! The first of its type I have seen on Gemstone Beach.

A type of spotted argillite, I think.

I am always on the outlook for a red trace fossil in a red mudstone, having seen only a couple before. I was very pleased to spot this one!

I had to look close at this one to spot the depths in the clear parts.

The complexity of this little stone just goes on and on.

Small but gorgeous!

Green quartzite.

Breccia at one end.

Sone great traces.

A Gemstone Beach rhyolite.

Banded argillite.

A shorter version of this Post first appeared in the Facebook Group “New Zealand Lapidary, Rocks, Minerals, Fossils”. The next Post in this Series describes another visit to Gemstone Beach, this time on a cold day. The first Post in this Series is here.