The ice age slowly carved the backbone of the South Island, eventually forming the snow covered mountains and glaciers of the Southern Alps; a mountain range now spanning almost 500Km. This also led to the formation of the exquisite Fiordland’s in the far south West. With ten national parks, world heritage sites, ski resorts, fiords, lakes and luxuriant rain forests, much of the island is an outdoor paradise.

A fjiord is the result when a glacier cuts a deep, U-shaped valley through a river valley and advances into the sea.

The Moeraki Boulders are huge spherical stones that are scattered over the sandy beaches, but they are not like ordinary round boulders that have been shaped by rivers and pounding seas.

fossil shell, bone fragment, or piece of wood at the start

Lime minerals in the sea accumulated on the core over time, and the concretion grew into perfectly spherical shapes up to three metres in diameter.

The waves pushes the accumulation of sediments and shaping it in a spherical shape as it roll down the beach.

The scientists say that the boulders are 60 million years old. They started as lime crystals, which then attracted other minerals around it to make the boulder shape.

Moeraki Boulders