Waipara

Two weeks ago, one of the dads in our homeschool group led a walk up the gorge of the Waipara River, to look for fossils. There are a lot of fossils in the rocks there, and they wash out in floods. He has an extensive collection of fossils, and has found some pretty interesting animals—one was even named after him!

We started with a picnic in the river bed. After everyone was done eating, we started walking. The first thing we did was cross the river in a place that was about a foot deep, then walked through a very rocky area. For a ways, we walked in the river, where it was only a few inches deep, then walked on the rocks again, then on a grassy area. Eventually, we came out at the base of a cliff littered with concretions, enormous round rocks. They are at all levels of the cliff, and as the cliff face erodes, they come down. Thankfully, none came down while we were there! Our leader didn’t allow the boys to climb as high as they wanted to, for their own safety. We only saw a few fossils, but had a beautiful walk with good friends! The man in front center of this picture, wearing a backpack and gumboots, was our leader.

That tiny white object my finger is pointing to is a shark’s tooth! In the one area we walked through, there were a lot of these shattered rocks.

This was a vertebrae from a marine reptile.

My Mr. Diligence found this greensand, a type of sandstone.

That’s my Mr. Handyman in the middle, helping carry one of the little children. The first concretion I found. I sat on it to feed my baby, and the wife of our leader commented that she had sat there to feed her baby several years before!