Taken on a trip to New Zealand. This place is a fantastic and bizarre place to visit and very popular so it is best to visit very early or later on in the day.

Moeraki Boulders - Moeraki visitor guide showing a virtual tour of 'Moeraki Boulders' linked to an interactive map with local and travel information. 360° panoramas from Otago.

Moeraki's boulders are a geological phenomenon. Set on a spectacular sandy beach on the windswept and craggy Otago coastline, these boulders are concretions formed by the cementation of the Paleocene mudstone.

Up to 5.5 million years ago, a fossil, shell or piece of debris was sloshing around harmlessly on the ocean bed. It started to pick up sediments and get muddy. Over a period of time, these sediments harden - known as calcification - and take on a crusty shell-like coating over the little bit of debris. Over millions of years, this gets added to and the debris grows in size - very much like the process by which a piece of grit inside an oyster grows into becoming a pearl.

The exterior is smooth from the constant gentle erosion of the sea water moving around it. As the sea beds move with the natural processes of the Earth's tectonic plates shifting, these boulders have been raised up from the depths of the ocean so that the ground on which they lay was once the sea floor and millions of year later, it is now exposed beach. That's why they are a phenomenon and distinctly different from the geology of the surrounding coastal area. For more detailed information, please visit another panorama from Moeraki taken on a windy day.

They are also quite beautiful and a popular visitor attraction which brings a lot of interest and tourist dollars into the nearby fishing village or Moeraki. Much has been made of these boulders in Maori legend, but whether of factual interest to geologers or historic interest to culture, they are surely an unusual sight and a fun place to play on such a beautiful beach.

45°20′42.99″S, 170°49′33.82″E

North of Palmerston road on Highway 1.