Such a Gem!

Wednesday 28 May

Abby wanted to walk round to Gemstone Beach and back before she started work so 3 of us plus Harley set off before dawn (admittedly that’s 8ish at this time of year) and walked about 3km around Orepuki Bay. The beach texture is quite fascinating - starting with soft sand in our corner by Monkey Island, then gradually getting grainier as you round the curve, with black added into the grey (so the tide left argyll sweater patterns behind) and this turned into tiny pebbles which were so hard to walk through, before we hit Gemstone Beach itself which was a riot of multi coloured semi-precious gemstones - jades, jaspers, quartzes and garnets.

The tide had washed all the semi precious gemstones with a veneer of shiny sea water and we spent half an hour picking up our favourite pebbles and stones and marvelling at nature’s beauty.

Walking back in better light we became fascinated by the geology of the fragile cliffs along the way. There were large chunks which had tumbled down to the beach and some of them looked like compacted burned wood, charcoal or composting plant life. The cliffs were striped with assorted rock colours and formations, predominantly a soft, buttery yellow sandstone striped with deep rusty orange patches - this layer seemed quite fragile with lots of cracks and water ingress causing potential future collapse. Some areas it had sheered off in plates, like flaky pastry.

Along by Gemstone Bay the cliffs held a 30-50cm deep layer of gemstone pebbles at around eye level - further on towards Monkey Island this layer had halved in depth and was 10m or more up the cliff which here was predominantly golden sandstone. Closer to the Monkey Island end, a stream broke through the cliffs and onto the beach, washing out millions more of the beautiful coloured & patterned stones. It also washed away a top layer of sand in places revealing more stones and I wondered if these had washed down too, or if the whole beach was actually concealing a thick layer of gemstones under the sand?

Back at base we had a chilled morning then Louis, Jez and I set out to explore a little more of the area in the car. I had a very funny encounter with a herd of young cattle who came galloping across the fields when we stopped the car; we were amazed at how tiny the Cosy Nook freedom camp was (about 4 times the size of Banjo); we found another of the Matariki wayfinder pou (Matariki - the mother star); and Jeremy had a roller coaster ride in the back of the Pajero as we’d forgotten to deflate the suspension airbags and Southland’s roads are horrifically bumpy!

Dinner in the Moho then a chilled evening in Banjo sorting photos and catching up on socials - very happy at how we were handling another night off grid with very low sunshine hours and angles on the solar panels.