Like many things in New Zealand, there is deep Māori legend associated with the mysterious Moeraki boulders—which travelers can visit during our Pure New Zealand adventure.
Question: Where in the world did lost cargo turn into giant, perfectly rounded boulders (according to local legend)?
Answer: Koekohe beach, New Zealand
When one sets their eyes upon the mysterious Moeraki boulders, they might not immediately think they’re rocks. Instead, these boulders might be mistaken for an escargatoire of giant snails or even man-made sculptures. And, truth be told, the Moeraki boulders aren’t rocks after all.
You’re now probably wondering: Then what exactly are the Moeraki boudlers? Well, there are two explanations for the formations.
On one hand, there’s local legend. If you hear Māori people—the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand—talking about the “eel pots,” “hooligan’s gallstones,” “giant gobstoppers,” “alien’s brains,” or “the bowling balls of giants,” they’re referring to these strange rock formations.
According to Māori legend, these perfectly spherical objects (called Te kaihinaki by the Māori, which translates to “the food-baskets”) are remains of calabashes (gourds used to store water), kūmaras (sweet potatoes), and eel baskets that washed ashore after the Araiteuru—a legendary ancestral sailing canoe—was wrecked at nearby Shag Point (referred to as Matakaea by the Māori).
The legend begins with Rokoitua, an ancestor of southern Kai Tahu, who met the Kähui Tipua people in the Wairarapa (a region of New Zealand which lies in the south-eastern corner of the North Island). The Kähui Tipua people offered Rokoitua some mamaku (tree fern) to eat but he preferred the dried kumara he carried in his belt, which he took out and soaked in a bowl of water. When the Kähui Tipua tasted it, they decided to build a canoe to try and obtain this new food from “across the sea.”
When the canoe returned with the kumara, the crop was planted—but it failed. However, Rokoitua sailed to Hawaiiki on a second canoe—the legendary, aforementioned Araiteuru—and learned the correct karakia (incantations) and tikanga (customs) connected with growing this plant. On its return trip, the Araiteuru became waterlogged. Some of its food baskets and water calabashes were washed overboard, where they were preserved in stone as the famous Moeraki boulders. More of its precious cargo of gourds, kumara, and taro seed were also lost, and the canoe was eventually wrecked at Matakaea (remember, this is what the Māori call Shag Point).
The Māori believe that the reef at the mouth of the Shag River is said to be the petrified hull of the canoe, and a prominent rock nearby to be the mortal remains of its navigator and helmsman, Hipo. Names of passengers are given to hills in the area (more on this below). There are many versions of this legend, but the essence of the story preserves an oral tradition of the arrival of kumara (sweet potato) in Aotearoa (the Māori name for New Zealand).
On the other hand, modern science begs to differ with the Māori legend. Much like an oyster’s pearl, they believe these boulders originally started forming around 60 million years ago through ancient sea floor sediments. Scientists theorize that the Moeraki boulders are in fact septarian concretions, (mineral masses—not rocks), carved out of millions of years of erosion as the harsh waves continuously struck the surrounding mudstone cliffs and hardened the Paleocene mudstone buried inside of them.
It’s thought that their spherical shape is due to their source of carbon being mass diffusion, which led the rocks to “grow” over five million years, while at the same time, up to 165 feet of marine mud settled on them.
Several scientific studies and analyses using optical mineralogy, X-ray crystallography, and electron microprobe have been used to determine that the boulders consist of mud, fine silt, and clay—which are cemented by calcite.
5 Fun Facts About the Moeraki boulders:
- The geography of the area was named after the crew of the Araiteuru: The names of passengers and crew—including Matakaea, Puketapu, Pakihiwitahi and Hikaroroa—have been preserved in the names of hills and ranges inland all the way to Ka Tiritiri o te Moana (the Southern Alps). A rock at the sandbank at the mouth of the Waitaki river is called Moko-tere-a-tarehu, after one of the passengers on the Araiteuru, who was washed off and drowned there. A high mountain in the Kaikoura range is named after Tapuae-nuku while Puketapu also turned into a hill. The skipper of the Araiteuru, Hipo, can be seen as a rock in the stern of the petrified canoe (the reef at the mouth of the Shag River). Others on board were Tarahaua and Hua-te-kirikiri (now the names of mountains at Rakitata river), Ruataniwha (a mountain at Ohou), Maukatere (a mountain at Rakaia river), Kakiroa (a mountain near Aoraki, also known as Mt. Cook), and more. Kaitakata, one of the men on board, was a painter who settled near Lake Kaitangata and left a lot of maukoroa (paint) in the hills near there. Finally, Aonui, a cook, was turned into a rock in the sea—now, there is a kelp bag on each side of him.
- The boulders vary quite drastically in size: On Moeraki beach you’ll count over 50 boulders of different sizes. One-third of the Moeraki Boulders range in size from about one and a half to three feet in diameter. The other two-thirds of these boulders range from five to seven feet. The largest Moeraki Boulders weigh approximately seven tons and measure about ten feet tall.
- According to 19th century photographs, there used to be even more Moeraki boulders than there are today—but people stole a bunch of them: This is made especially clear in an 1848 sketch by Walter Mantell. Kept in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, this sketch showed that the beach had quite a few more boulders than it currently has. It’s thought that people took the smaller rocks as souvenirs. To prevent this from happening again, the Moeraki Boulders are now under legal protection, meaning that it’s prohibited for people to remove, damage, or graffiti them. One prominent boulder that is missing from the beach is on display at Otago Museum.
- The Moeraki boulders were once stars on the silver screen: The boulders were featured in a movie from the Chronicles of Narnia series, "Voyage of the Dawn Treader."
- Fossils can be found in the Moeraki boulders: In some of these boulders are bones of encapsulated, extinct marine reptiles.
Behold the Moeraki Boulders with your own eyes during our Pure New Zealand adventure.
