With Brian heading back to the U.S. in a couple of days, we decided we would do something fun together this weekend. It's been a while since we planned a road trip - it's just not as exciting during the winter. Luckily, I heard about a historical place that we could drive to in a day so we decided to go and see the Moeraki Boulders.
We took a "short" three hour drive south of Christchurch. Moeraki is almost all the way to Dunedin, which was Brian's first area on his mission. (See Day Trip Part II for more on Dunedin). We planned to arrive at Moeraki in the late afternoon due to the tides. The boulders are really large, spherical shaped rocks that dot the beach in Moeraki. They can only be seen during low tide. It was kind of interesting to get online and map out the tides to make sure we would be there at the right time. Gotta love the internet!
It was a little cold by 4:00 pm as you will see from our warm outfits. But I was really excited that there were other tourists there and we got a nice family to take our picture. It's not often we get to be in a picture together!
(Scroll past the pictures for a history of the boulders)
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| Brian thought this one looked like a soccer ball. That's gonna hurt! |
Origin of the Moeraki Boulders - The Maori explanation:
The Ngai Tahu people of the area (the main/largest Maori tribe in the Christchurch region) relate the Moeraki Boulders to the wreck of the great canoe Arai Te Uru. As it was traveling south, the canoe foundered in a storm near Matakaea (Shag Point). Its cargo was washed up on the nearby beaches - the round food baskets and water gourds are Te Kai Hinaki (the Moeraki Boulders), while the seed kumara (sweet potatoes) are the irregularly shaped boulders further south.
The hull of Arai Te Uru forms the reef which extends into the sea at Shag Point, and the large rock nearby is Hipo, the navigator. Several of the hills between Moeraki and Palmerston carry the names of crew members: Pukehiwitahi, Puketapu, Nga Tamariki a Hekura (Hekura's childrren) and Poutaiki. The hills can also be taken to represent the great waves which overwhelmed the canoe.
The scientific explanation:
The Moeraki Boulders were once buried in mudstone cliffs at the back of the beach. For millions of years the sea has been eroding these cliffs, washing away the soft mudstone which surrounds the resistant boulders. In the process the cliffs have constantly slumped seaward and the boulders have been left lying on the shoreline.
To geologists the Moeraki Boulders are septarian concretions. Their roundness has nothing to do with being washed by the surf - they were round when they formed in the mudstone. The process by which they formed began some 60 million years ago (in the Paleocene period). At that time much of this area was covered by ocean. Muddy sediment, with fragments of plants and shells, accumulated on the sea floor. As great thicknesses of mud piled up over millions of years, chemical changes occurred in the wet sediment and the concretions gradually grew within the mudstone.
About 15 million years ago during the Miocene period, the mudstone and other rocks of the region were lifted up above sea level and the agents of erosion began to work away at the new landmass. Eventually the modern coastline was sculptured, exposing the mudstone beds containing the concretions.
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| We saw this sign before we knew the history of the area. Like the mature couple we are, we couldn't pass up the amazing photo opportunity! |
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