Moeraki Boulders

More than 50 large, round boulders are scattered along the beach like a giant's petanque set. Wave action didn't form them; carbonate of lime, silica, alumina and peroxide of iron have - over millions of years - gradually solidified around a small centre of lime crystals. In the bank at the edge of the beach you can see boulders which are being exposed as the sea washes away the earth around them. Maori folklore has a much more romantic explanation for the almost perfectly round boulders. They were once food baskets and the angular rocks on the beach were kumara (sweet potatoes). The food baskets were washed ashore when the Hawaiiki ancestral canoe, Araiteura, was wrecked on a voyage south searching for pounamu (greenstone).
Moeraki Boulders by Sean Chen

PERSONALISED TOUR FROM DUNEDIN

Image Credits: David Baldock Photographer