More than 130 competitors lined the shore at Lake Hawea on Saturday for New Zealand’s first national stone skimming championships, an unhurried South Island contest that ended with a Queenstown-based Australian and an Auckland radio host crowned as inaugural champions.
The competition was staged on the gravel beach at Lake Hawea Station near Wanaka, where organiser Richie Laming had been quietly plotting the event for months. Laming wanted something that captured the simple pleasure of an afternoon at the lake while raising money for a serious cause, and on a calm autumn day with a glassy surface stretching out toward the Hunter Mountains, the format proved an immediate hit.
Stone skimming has a long and gentle tradition wherever there is flat water and small smooth stones. The international version of the sport revolves around the World Stone Skimming Championships at Easdale Island off the west coast of Scotland, which has been running since 1983 and now draws hundreds of competitors from around the globe each September. New Zealand has produced occasional entrants for the Scottish event but has never had a formal domestic title to match.
Lake Hawea changed that. Competitors were asked to plant their feet inside a marked lane, to use stones no wider than three inches across, and to land at least two clean bounces before the skip was counted. Judges measured the longest throw of each round. The lake itself did most of the work, sitting almost mirror still until the late afternoon breeze finally arrived to ruffle the surface.
The women’s title went to Abbey McDonald, a Queenstown-based Australian whose competition best of 72 metres turned heads early in the day. She held her nerve through the elimination rounds and sealed the championship with a final throw of 42 metres, comfortably ahead of the rest of the field. McDonald told RNZ that she had felt at ease from the moment she picked up her first stone, describing the day as a feeling of destiny and saying she just felt right at home on the Hawea shoreline.
The men’s title was won by Jay Reeve, a host on The Rock radio station who had driven down from Auckland with no real expectation of taking the trophy. Reeve’s winning throw measured 51 metres, an effort that surprised him as much as anyone in the crowd. Not even in my wildest dreams, he said afterwards, joking that by the closing rounds he was held together by duct tape, and pure determination. Reeve has now been invited to represent New Zealand alongside McDonald at the Scottish world championships in September.
The qualification for the Easdale Island event was one of the small touches that gave the Lake Hawea championships an unexpected weight. Both winners will now travel to Argyll to compete against the British, European and North American skimmers who dominate the global ranking lists. The Scottish event uses a flooded slate quarry rather than a lake, which produces a slightly different rhythm to the throws, and McDonald said she would spend the months ahead trying to adapt her style to the tighter water.
Money raised on the day went to Melanoma New Zealand, the patient support and advocacy charity that has been working for nearly two decades to reduce the country’s stubbornly high rates of skin cancer. New Zealand has one of the highest melanoma incidences in the world, and the Lake Hawea organisers chose the cause deliberately, framing the championships as an outdoor event that also reminded competitors to think about sun safety and regular skin checks. Donation buckets sat alongside the registration desk and the post-event prize giving included an explicit nod to the charity’s work.
Laming has confirmed that the championships will return in 2027 and that organisers are already in conversation with regional clubs about possible qualifying rounds. There has also been talk of a biannual format and of satellite competitions in other parts of the country, with Otago, Canterbury, Bay of Plenty and Northland mentioned as natural venues. The Lake Hawea Station team is keen for the national title to remain at the original venue but is open to the idea of a travelling regional circuit feeding into it.
For most of the 130 entrants the day was less about silverware than about an afternoon spent in genuinely beautiful country with a beach full of friendly strangers. Whole families took part, with grandparents and grandchildren competing in the same heats, and a steady stream of casual visitors wandered down from the station after lunch to throw a few stones of their own. The judges allowed a generous interpretation of the rules in the early heats to keep the mood inclusive, tightening up only as the competition moved into the finals.
It is the kind of event that, in time, could quietly join the list of small but distinctively New Zealand traditions, alongside cheese rolls in Southland or wood chopping at A and P shows, that draw people together because they ask very little of anyone. All you need is a flat stone, a bit of wrist action and a lake long enough to swallow your best effort.
Have you ever tried stone skimming, and is there a beach or river bend you reckon would make a perfect qualifying venue? Drop a comment below and tell us where you would hold the next round.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
Leave a Reply