January 29 - February 27, 2025 New Zealand February 6

In Hampden, we visit the impressive Moeraki Boulders.

The Moeraki Boulders (Maori: Kaihinaki) are a number of unusually large spherical concretions located at Koekohe Beach on the coast of Otago on the South Island of New Zealand, between Moeraki and Hampden. The gray-colored septaria lie individually or in groups along the coast. The erosion of the siltstone here at the coast regularly exposes more boulders.

According to legends of the local Māori, the boulders are remnants of eel baskets, bottle gourds, and sweet potatoes washed ashore from the wreck of the legendary canoe Arai-te-uru. According to these legends, the cliffs extending from Shag Point into the sea are the petrified remains of the canoe's hull, and a nearby rock outcrop represents the body of the captain. In 1848, W.B.D. Mantell mapped the coast and the stones that were still numerous at that time. This image is located in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. The boulders were already mentioned in reports from the colonial administration in 1850 and have since become a tourist attraction.

In Moeraki, Otago, we visit a seal lion colony at the Karitane headland. Then we proceed to Dunedin.