Moeraki, North Otago, New Zealand

19th and 20th January.

On our way towards the coast from Burkes Pass a pilot vehicle pulled us off the road for this house to pass - it took up both lanes and the hard shoulder, so all traffic going the other way had to pull up on the grass verge! People who move house in New Zealand often do this too literally. Fortunately we had been warned this might happen here otherwise it would have been quite a shock!

The quiet fishing village of Moeraki has plenty of holiday homes - we are in a Kiwi Batch or holiday home overlooking the fishing boats and the jetty. There is no passing traffic as we are at the end of the road, almost opposite a tiny restaurant called Fleur’s place. The rain stopped as we arrived from Burkes Pass, but the clouds have remained, sitting low on the hills overlooking the bay.

On the small beach just below our house - I think it may be called a "batch" or perhaps a "loft" in Moeraki fishing village.

Another view, looking towards Moeraki from the beach.

In the morning we took a drive up to Katiki Point, along 5km of dirt road, quite rutted in places, and parked by the lighthouse. There were a few camper vans and a small group of cars, and a small sign explaining that the penguin colony is closed to visitors after 7.30pm. Katiki point is an awesome free place to see yellow eyed penguins and fur seals up close.

This is a yellow eyed penguin sleeping off his large meal of fish this morning.

A sea bird - unsure which!

A yellow eyed penguin who seems to have got himself stuck on the wrong side of the fence.

Walking along the track along to the point we get to the cliffs, and there are seals on the rocks and on the sandy bays a few metres below us.  At first there is a fence that keeps us on one side with the seals and penguins on the other, but at the end of the peninsula the fence runs out and you can walk amongst the fur seals.

 The seals are very ungainly on the rocks

They appear to engage in some kind of social play together.

Eventually we spot a yellow eyed penguin mother with a chick of about the same size, which it was feeding and then grooming.  The chick has still got some rather fluffy looking down on its head where it has not fully moulted but lacks the adult colours around the eyes.

At the very end of the peninsula there are seals basking on their backs, hoping for the sun to break through the clouds. We were able to get very close to them.

There are fur seals lying everywhere and we were able to walk between them right at the edge of the cliff. They are so agile in the water, and so ungainly on land, but perfectly camouflaged so they look like the rocks they are grouped on.

It is amazing that we are able to get so close to both the seals and the penguins, and there are no rangers demanding a fee, and no car parking charge. One simply has to get here to see them. The seals like lying on their backs, and although we don’t try to get too close, they seem to be unconcerned by tourists coming up to gawp at them.

After our walk on the peninsula, back to the car for a warming cup of tea. The lighthouse is in the background, a typical old wooden structure

Then it was time to drive to the boulders beach. The Moeraki boulders, where there are giant boulders about 2-3 km up the coast from the village. These strange rocks lie in the water at the high tide mark, some almost as tall as an adult, and perfectly spherical. I can see they are made of a crystalline material at their core, and covered over by a mineral rich sediment that has become rock, in a process that geologists have estimated at millions of years. All the smaller rock spheres have been removed by souvenir hunters, leaving only the rocks of a metre or larger in diameter, that are impossible to shift.

We took lots of photographs of these strange rocks, some were rocks split open to reveal their gem like interiors. Reading from an information leaflet we've found in the local pub - these boulders are classed as sectarian concretions, formed in ancient sea floor sediment. They were created in a process similar to the formation of oyster pearls, by layers of sediment covering a central nucleus or core of a fossil shell, bone fragment or piece of wood. Lime minerals in the sea accumulated on this core over time and the concretions grew into perfectly spherical shapes, up to 3m in diameter.

The original mud and stone sea bed has been uplifted to form cliffs and these have been eroded over time, releasing the captive boulders which lie at the tide mark on the sandy beach. You can see the interior of this sphere has a crystalline structure.

Here is Carol sitting atop one of the boulders to show how large it is.

The Maori legend is that these rocks are food baskets, washed ashore from a wrecked sea canoe at Shag point, where there is a prominent partially submerged rock.