04/02/2018 - Round Moeraki Boulders

The morning greeted us with blue skies and sunshine. Even in the night, temperatures dropped below 10 degrees. But after a warm shower, we already felt much better. We continued our journey to the small coastal town of Hampden. From there, we are planning to visit the famous Moeraki Boulders.
Before leaving our old campground in Oamaru, we visited the farmer's market, which takes place every Sunday at the harbor. In addition to tasty fruit, we bought fresh beans and bacon for our dinner tonight.

We reached Hampden after 40 minutes and we were afraid of arriving too early for the check-in. But we were warmly welcomed by the nice campground owner. After taking our contact details, the owner suddenly spoke German. It turned out that she comes from Switzerland. She explained where we can find everything and then showed us the current tide times. She advised us to visit the Boulders as soon as possible, as they can only be reached at low tide. The special thing about the campground, apart from its beautiful beach location, is its proximity to this tourist attraction. So we parked our car overlooking the sea, quickly cooled our food and off we went. On the way to the spherical rocks, we saw smaller, quirky rock formations that resembled the Boulders. After a 30-minute beach walk, we reached the destination. From afar, we could already see that it was crowded.

The Moeraki Boulders are rock formations that have an unnatural shape. They are round and can have a diameter of up to 3 meters. The rock balls are scattered on a small section of beach and are wonderful as photo motives. But we don't know exactly how the composition of the rock came about. We tried to research it, but it exceeds our knowledge of geology. :)
The fact is: The Boulders are not made of stone, but consist of various elements. Their age is estimated at about 4-5 million years.

We walked along the entire section of the beach to get an idea of how many "stones" there really are. They appear very robust, which raises the question of how they got here and how long they have been here. We were excited from the beginning and started taking pictures. After about 45 minutes and several pictures, we made our way back to the campground. Due to light rain and incoming wind, the walk back seemed longer and it felt like it took us an hour.
Since the weather didn't improve much and our camera batteries were almost empty, we took refuge in the TV room. Here we could calmly recharge our electronics. Fortunately, there were a few board games available. From Monopoly to Battleship - we spent a good three hours in the sheltered room.
After dinner, we went to another attraction. The path led us to Moeraki - to the "Kaitiki Lighthouse". However, most visitors don't come here because of the lighthouse. It's rather because of the nature reserve behind it. The well-developed path leads from the parking lot past the lighthouse to a small peninsula. It is still incredibly beautiful for us to see these animals in their natural environment. That evening, we saw at least 50 sea lions. They either played in the water, slept on the rocks, or fought with each other. Some sea lions are hardly afraid of encountering humans. They lie in the middle of the hiking trail or take a nap just five meters away from the visitors. But we prefer to observe the animals from a safe distance. Because as peaceful as they sometimes seem, that can quickly change!
Another special feature of "Kaitiki Point" is the small yellow-eyed penguin colony. The rare and shy penguin species can only be encountered in New Zealand with a stroke of luck. That evening, we were able to observe three of them at once. Two of them had already made their way to their nests and were grooming their feathers. The third one had just come out of the sea and was still finding its way - over algae and past sleeping sea lions. The wonderful nature and its wildlife never cease to amaze us. The cold and the strong wind are completely forgotten. But slowly the twilight set in. So we took the gravel road back to the campground and went to bed. Through the open windows, we listened to the sound of the sea - there is no better sound to fall asleep to. :)