Blogs from Moeraki Boulders, South Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 2

The Moeraki Boulders Our second road trip introduced us to one of our favorite places in New Zealand: MOERAKI ("moe-RACK-ee") As a matter of fact (as you'll see if you continue to check out this travelblog as I get slowly around to adding all our various trips here) is one of only two places we've visited twice: we loved it so much that we came back here for our Thanksgiving celebration. But this was our first trip south of Christchurch. The maori named these boulders "Te Kaihinaki" (food baskets.) Their legend states that they were washed ashore from the wreck of a canoe whose occupants were seeking pounamu (a beautiful New Zealand jade known as greenstone.) The reef near Shag Point was the hull of the boat; the rock just beyond was the petrified navigator. Some ... read more

On the way driving from Oamaru to Dunedin I needed a break so I decided to stop on the beach. It's to cold to swim, but mist was rising off the ocean and the sunset was turning it all pink. I felt I was in some fantasy novel (the kind with unicorns, althought of course I NEVER read these types of books myself). The beach is covered with these giant rocks that according to Maori (the indigenous people) legends are actually gourds that washed ashore during a great canoe vogage 1000 years ago. I suspect that they're mistaken and the rocks are actually alien pods. Thankfully for us, the aliens miscalculated our earth's temperature, and the pods fossilized while descending into the atmosphere! (This took a long time). Whichever the case, I find that the ... read more

Now when I say to people that Glynn and I love rock, it never occurs to me that people might actually think we're into geology rather than guitars. Today however, was one of those days where nature had clearly misunderstood our meaning and so we found ourselves surrounded by rock after rock after rock, mostly in a good way though! It was a lovely morning when we woke up at the Dansey's Pass Campsite so we took the opportunity to go for a walk by the river running right alongside the site. We had no idea that the river cut through some lovely slate rock formations and we had fun climbing over the jagged edges and watching the turbulent waters racing down the valley. Back in the van, we first went off to look for a ... read more