Moeraki Boulders & Penguins (Day 22)

Some places are just so magical I feel as if I can't write about them.  And yet write I must, in order to preserve these feelings in the moment they happened.  Preserve them almost as a time capsule, so in the future I can look back on them as a form of time travel, and re-live everything I felt from the perspective of the girl that felt it, rather than in hindsight from whomever I will become.

And yet still, how do I bring YOU, dear reader, with me into the unexpected magic we experienced in our unplanned day in Moeraki?

The day started off innocently enough.  We left Brighton early and headed to this town because I had wanted to see the Moeraki Boulders ever since I found a photo of them when I was back in Canada.  The image captured me - the Moeraki Boulders are enormous, perfectly spherical boulders, between 0.5 - 2.2 metres tall, that were formed around 5 million years ago in a process similar to the way oyster pearls are formed, with minerals acculturating around one small item like a shell or stone.  This process happened on the ocean floor while layers of mud accumulated over top of them.  When the ocean floor was raised up to the surface, the rain and elements slowly wore away the covering mud until the boulders were exposed, and rolled down the cliffs onto the beach.  This process has happened in other parts of the world (Kettle Point, Ontario is one such place) but the Moeraki Boulders are unique for their perfect spherical shape, their massive size, and their huge concentration in one area.  The boulders are best viewed at low tide, and by chance we happened to be arriving precisely at the lowest point in the tide. 

Imagine perfectly round spheres of solid rock, lying on the shore like a giant's carelessly discarded marbles.  Over 50 of them, of varying sizes, as the waves gently crash against the shore.

There were others on the beach before us, taking photos with and on the boulders.  We walked around, marveling at the perfectly round, enormous spheres.

We took photos, too, but we lingered. 

We visited each boulder.  We jumped on them.  We climbed on them, finding foot and hand holds just like we were rock climbing.  We hopped from one to the other.  We went inside the ones that were cracked open. We sat on them to rest.  I even went to give one a hug that was all alone near the edge of the ocean, because it seemed like it was smaller than the others, and half-buried in the sand, and didn't get as much attention as the larger fully exposed ones.  We played with those boulders for an hour and a half, while tourists came, snapped photos, and left.

It was one of the most fun days I've had in New Zealand so far.  It's one thing to look at fascinating things like the Pancake Rocks or the gorgeous fjords in Milford Sound.  It's quite another to immerse yourself IN and WITH the natural features of the landscape and make them a part of you, and you a part of them.

Eventually we managed to drag ourselves away from the wonderful fun of the boulders and decided to try and catch a glimpse of the rarest penguin in the world, the Yellow-Eyed.

I had read that one of the best places to see them was right here in Moeraki, as they had a colony here.  So we drove down the road to Lighthouse Rd., and made the ten minute long drive up windy gravel roads through green farmer's fields full of peaceful sheep overlooking gorgeous blue ocean views, and finally found ourselves at the parking lot near the lighthouse.


We followed the signs for the penguin colony viewing area, and entered a steep downhill pathway through an unmarked fence to a small shelter with some benches and slits in the wood where you could look down at a small patch of beach and hope to catch a glimpse of the penguins coming home from the sea.

We sat in the little shelter, speaking to each other in whispers, eyes ever on the sea, hoping to spot one, even though signs advised the best time to view them was approaching dusk, when they all came home from the ocean.  We waited and watched for about 20 minutes as other tourists came, poked their heads in, and left when there were no penguins a la carte waiting for them to view.

J and I looked at each other.  We really wanted to see this elusive penguin.  "Maybe if we go get gas and come back in a bit, we can try again?" I proposed.  J agreed, so back down the windy road into town we went, to get gas and grab a coffee.  An hour and a half later, closer to late afternoon, we returned to wait and watch for penguins again.  We settled down on the bench with our coffee, keeping a close look on the sea.  We are patient tourists - we know the best things come from waiting, from being in the right place at the right time, from wrong turns, from lingering when we had planned to be further on.

After about twenty minutes, a small black face appeared in the surf.  I gasped and pointed - "A penguin!!!" I whispered excitedly to J.  "Where, where?" she asked as she tried to see.  I kept pointing.  "Oh!  There!"

The Yellow-Eyed penguin had appeared.  We watched in pure fascination as it bobbed in and out of the waves crashing on the shore, and finally waddled its way on to land.  It walked around a bit on the sand, and then disappeared into the shrubs beyond our sight. 

Then suddenly, another, and another, and shortly afterwards, a third!  It was fascinating to watch them come in, rather clumsy-looking and awkward as the waves sort of tumbled them onto the shore and they took a few moments to get themselves upright.  We were as delighted as children and couldn't take our eyes off the water.  We saw five of them come in, in total.  We sat and waited another half hour or so, hoping for more to come in, but that seemed to be it.

A family came in while we were watching.  The father appeared to be a photographer who had been here many times before, and told us that the penguins could often be seen after they came ashore at another lookout point.

We could definitely hear them squaking in the bush, so we followed the other trail over to a peninsula with a fenced-off area, and there they were!  Incredible to be so very close to them - just a metre away or less.  They didn't seem to mind our presence too much, and we watched them clean each other, waddle around, and make very loud calls by putting their heads up in the air and vibrating their heads and necks as they squawked.

This location also had Fur Seals just lounging around on the grass where we walked, which delighted J to no end, and she amused herself by taking close-up photos of them with my zoom lens while I wandered around enjoying the breathtaking ocean views, the Yellow-Eyed penguins, and the incredible magic of this unexpected day.

Hours later, the sun was getting ready to set, and we pulled ourselves away from the penguins and seals and decided to go back to the boulders and experience them at sunset as well as high tide.  What we had initially planned to be an hour or so at the boulders in the morning and then moving on to Mt. Cook had turned into a day's worth of deeply rewarding experiences, and we were in no rush to leave this place.

The day had cooled down, but the beach was empty of people.  We had the partially submerged boulders all to ourselves.  As then sun painted the sky with pink and purple over the ocean and the incredible round spheres, we walked slowly along the beach in the chilly sea air, admiring the mysterious boulders in the silence of the approaching dusk.

Moeraki was an unexpected jewel.  It slowed us down, and filled us with wonder.

After we pulled ourselves away from the boulders for the second and last time, we finally continued our drive and ended up in Oamaru, a fascinating seaside town known for three unconnected things:  a Victorian-era preserved section of town, steampunk art, and Blue Penguins.

The Blue Penguin is the smallest penguin in the world, and our selected campsite for the evening happened to be right across the street from Oamaru's Blue Penguin colony.  After paying our camp fees via envelope in a deposit box, we noticed a sign cautioning visitors to watch for penguins when pulling out their car.  Amused, we took a late night walk over to where we heard the racket of dozens of Blue Penguins.  One of them was just wandering around our parking lot, adorably squeaking and waddling around.  We saw many more just wandering the streets as we walked around the area.
It was incredibly surreal to be walking around this town and seeing little penguins wandering all over the place by moonlight.  In the morning, they would all be gone - back out to sea.

The delight of this magical day was palpable, and I think we both fell asleep that night in pure happiness.

Is this why we travel?  To slow down, to really notice what is all around us, to allow ourselves the freedom to immerse ourselves in the mystery of this incredible planet we live on - its natural beauty, its unexplained features, its fascinating creatures?

May it is simply this slowness that we seek.  This freedom from the entanglement of the everyday.  The chance to let the world do something to us, rather than us acting upon the world.

I don't know.  All I know is that as I watched that first elusive penguin emerge from the sea, or ran my hands over an impossibly smooth and round boulder formed millions of years ago, or watched the tiniest penguins in the world waddle all around me, my eyes filled with tears of wonder, and I knew there was nowhere else in the world I was supposed to be than right here, in this moment.