Moeraki Boulders

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Maori legend tell of a great migration, in a large sea going Waka, which brought my/our ancestors from there home in Hawaiki to New Zealand, The same Legend tell of an ill fated green stone gathering trip of the Waka of the Araiteuru people which was wrecked near by.
While the remains of the Waka became a reef the kumara became rocks and the round food baskets or Te kahinaki were washed ashore and formed the almost perfrctly spherical boulders scattered along 50 metres of beach.

Scientists explain the boulders as calcite concretions formed about 65 million years ago. Cystallization of calicum and carbonates around charged particles gradually formed the boulders in a pearl-like process that took as long as 4 million years. The soft mudstone containing the boulders was raised from the seabed around 15 million years ago; waves and wind and rain are excavating them one by one.

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