Scattered along the beach at Moeraki which is some 40 kilometers south of Oamaru, the boulders are a popular visitor attraction. The soft mudstone containing the boulders was raised from the sea bed around 15 million years ago and sea erosion of the cliff is exposing the erosion-resistant boulders.
Emerging from the cliff, as if being born from the earth, the World famous Moeraki Boulders are septerian concretions formed some 65 million years ago. Crystallization of calcium and carbonates around charged particles in muddy undersea sediments gradually formed the boulders in a process taking as long as four million years.
The soft mudstone containing the boulders was raised from the sea bed around 15 million years ago and sea erosion is exposing the erosion-resistant boulders. According to Maori tradition, the boulders are gourds and calabashes, which is traditional maori food, washed from the great voyaging canoe Araiteuru when it was wrecked upon landfall in New Zealand some 1000 years ago.
Almost Unique in the world, the Moeraki Boulders are situated about 25 mins south from Oamaru along Sh1.Tthey can be seen emerging from the cliffs and slowly disappearing into the sand and the sea.Visitors can walk along the beach to visit the boulders, best seen at low tides, but visible most of the time.
New Zealand Mythology:
This history goes back as far as the legendary Arai-te-uru canoe, wrecked along the coast while searching for the precious stone of Te Wai Pounamu. The reef, which extends seaward near Shag Point represents the hull of the canoe. The huge boulders strewn along Moeraki Beach represent the eel baskets ... and the strangely shaped irregular rocks the kumara. Some of the crew reached land safely, but were overtaken by dawn and turned into hills which bear their names".
