Moeraki Boulders at Koekohe Beach

After leaving Olive Grove, drove to Koekohe Beach to see the Moeraki Boulders.






The Moeraki Boulders are unusually large and spherical boulders lying along a stretch of Koekohe Beach on the wave cut Otago coast of New Zealand between Moeraki and Hampden

Parked at the designated area, and had to walk quite a distance


HB going thru a rickety make shift 'bridge'




Source : Wikipedia
Local Māori legends explained the boulders as the remains of eel baskets, calabashes, and kumara washed ashore from the wreck of an Arai-te-uru, a large sailing canoe. This legend tells of the rocky shoals that extend seaward from Shag Point as being the petrified hull of this wreck and a nearby rocky promontory as being the body of the canoe's captain. In 1848 W.B.D. Mantell sketched the beach and its boulders, more numerous than now.






The Moeraki Boulders are concretions created by the cementation of the Paleocene mudstone of the Moeraki Formation, from which they have been exhumed by coastal erosion.
The main body of the boulders started forming in what was then marine mud, near the surface of the Paleocene sea floor. This is demonstrated by studies of their composition; specifically the magnesium and iron content, and stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon. Their spherical shape indicates that the source of calcium was mass diffusion, as opposed to fluid flow.



The larger boulders, 2 metres (6.6 feet) in diameter, are estimated to have taken 4 to 5.5 million years to grow while 10 to 50 metres (33 to 165 feet) of marine mud accumulated on the seafloor above them. After the concretions formed, large cracks known as septaria formed in them. Brown calcite, yellow calcite, and small amounts of dolomite and quartz progressively filled these cracks when a drop in sea level allowed fresh groundwater to flow through the mudstone enclosing them

a cracked boulder, noticed the septaria linings

To me, they looked like some aliens eggs..anytime I expect them to burst open

and some cutey ET babies would come wriggling out

this show clearly the size of these boulders

these boulders are more inland and slowly being eroded/exposed by the waves and wind

We left as the high tides came rolling in, so that our 'makeshift' bridge would still be passable.

And off we went to Dunedin, where Willy Wonka has his chocolate factory.