Solaria - Sanctuary of Soul & Stone NZ

30/08/2026

New Arrival at Solaria: The Hessey Collection

We are honoured to introduce a special addition to our space — a beautiful, hand-curated collection of rocks, crystals, and fossils gathered between the 1960s and 1990s.

Born profoundly deaf in 1953, Rachel Hessey grew up in Sumner, Canterbury, NZ surrounded by the sea and coastal landscapes. Inspired by her father — a science teacher — Rachel’s passion for geology sparked at just 8 years old. Years of family trips across key geographical locations in New Zealand, from Birdlings Flat to Central Otago, laid the foundation for a lifelong connection to the earth that eventually led her to complete a NZ Certificate in Science (including Stage 3 Geology) in 1995.

Alongside her field collecting, Rachel expresses her love for minerals through painting landscape artworks of rocks. As she winds down her hobbies, she has entrusted these personal treasures to Solaria to inspire, educate, and share the wonder of Earth’s natural history with our community.

Swipe through for a sneak peek at a small photographic selection from the Hessey Collection!

25/08/2026

Come and clean some of the recently donated Knight Collection rocks with me - trialling my brand new electronic duster! I am pretty happy with how it turned out 😀

23/08/2026

We live in Richmond so Aniseed Valley is only about 10 minutes away. Our favourite place to go is Twin Bridges Reserve. A really nice spot with a great selection of rocks and lots of Rodingite (named after the Roding River there). There are picnic tables and public toilets and it gets pretty busy in Summer but is nice and quiet in Winter. Although today it was a bit cold...

22/08/2026

Rocks I saw and enjoyed on my neighbourhood walk today with my family. Such a great range 😍 I don't take rocks from people's properties without asking the owners - but I can take photos! The first and last photos are from the same garden and are my favourite range from this lot... I don't believe they are from this region as I am pretty sure I see scoria in there and I haven't seen that at the local landscape suppliers here... although you can buy it bagged at Mitre10... so curious about that one 🤔

21/08/2026

Look at this rock with me at my local park... is it limestone with calcite and some sneaky quartz??

19/08/2026

Out & About at Kina Beach, Tasman, NZ yesterday and it was glorious!!! Met another lady called Amanda who also loves rocks and even named her adorable dogs after rocks too! So perfect. Emma and I also got our feet in the water and played with the gentle ebb and flow of the ocean. So soul-nourishing!

19/08/2026

Picked up some coal for the collection today from Jason at . So helpful and some of the best communication around! Highly recommend this place if you are in need of some wood or coal in Tasman 😄

17/08/2026

A selection of the recently photographed, measured and weighed mineral specimens from the Nicholson Collection.

16/08/2026

We love Half-Asleep Chris! He does such interesting videos that our whole family enjoy over and over again - and this one is no different. It shows just one of the ways humans and stone co-created together in alignment with the Earth, Sun and Cosmos in our long history of existence... I love it!

There is so much more out there than we know and more being discovered daily 💕

10,000 people gather at Stonehenge each year for Summer Solstice, b...

06/08/2026

Here is how we sort through new collections... this is the latest to arrive and many collections come a tad dirty and mostly unlabeled like this one - Once we give them a clean and repackage they not only look better but FEEL better too. It's like stones love to be loved 😍