Between Dunedin and Timaru we stopped off near Moeraki and at Omaru.
Just north of Moeraki is an array of large spherical boulders on the beach. Sixty million years ago sediment was collecting on the seabed, much of it fine mud. In addition, shell fragments were available and were attracted to a core of carbonate of lime crystals, building up into spheres, some up to two metres in diameter. After uplift of the seabed to form land, the soft mudstone cliffs were worn away easily leaving the harder boulders to remain or fall on to the beach. They looked amazing, in ones and twos or in groups.
Omaru used to be quite a port, although ships started using Dunedin more as there was a greater frequency of storms at Omaru. The local limestone is used in many of the local buildings and also further afield, for instance, Dunedin. The stone was acquired from local quarries. One of these is now the home to a colony of breeding blue penguins. In 1993 there were thirty three breeding pairs but the number has increased dramatically, so there are now more than one hundred and thirty.
The blue penguin is the smallest in the world at about thirty centimetres in height. All of the parents, apart from the males that have chicks less than three weeks old, go out before daybreak to find fish. They return at dusk in groups to the bay and waddle up the over the rocks to their nesting boxes to feed their young in the boxes.
We toured the breeding area and saw some chicks in boxes and then went to a hut where video links to ten boxes were set up. It was lovely to see the chicks as they waited for their parents to return and adults who were sitting on unhatched eggs. No cameras were allowed in the breeding area, so this photo of the water of the bay through which the penguins swim will have to suffice!
Jean
