South Island Trip - Day 8: Moeraki Boulders & Shag Point

Last night we got into Dunedin and met the other Senior Missionaries for a nice dinner at Lone Star.  We were with Elder & Sister Edwards and Elder & Sister Ward.  What a fun group!   The Edwards are Records Preservation missionaries so they are hard at work every day in the Archives taking digital pictures of records.   The Wards are Member & Leader Support (MLS), so their duties are more varied, and a bit more flexible.

Elder & Sister Edwards

    

  Elder & Sister Ward

Today, (Wednesday) we spent seeing the sights of Dunedin with the Wards.  They were wonderful guides and so much fun to be with it was nearly impossible to believe we had just met.  We felt like we had been friends for years!

The first place we went was the Moeraki boulders, a place I've always wanted to see.

Here is a video that talks about how they were formed:


 


After that we went to Shag Point, a pretty look out near by.

According to Trip Advisor:
"Shag Point, or Matakaea, was also home to a Maori settlement in about the 12th century. At the mouth of the Shag River, south of Shag Point, excavations have revealed middens full of moa bones and Maori artifacts such as adzes and fish hooks (you can see these in the Otago Museum as well). In the 1800s, whalers arrived at Shag Point. Later, the area was mined for coal. 
Today, Shag Point serves as a wildlife sanctuary. In summer juvenile fur seals haul out onto the rocks off Shag Point. Shags can be seen at Shag Point year-round. 
There are a few Yellow Eyed Penguins here as well."

The day we were there we did not see any wildlife other than seagulls, but we enjoyed being there with our new friends just the same.

After that we headed back in to Dunedin to see things there, but more on that that in the next post!