The name of Kaikoura consists of two words: Kai (food) and Koura (crayfish). It has its origin in the story of Tamatea-Pokai-Whenua, the legendary traveller of the Maori. He stopped off at this peninsula to cook a feed of crayfish on his way south to search for three of his wives who had fled. Bent on recapturing the wayward women he persued them down the East Coast of the South Island, through Foveaux Strait (the sea between the South and the Stewart Islands) then north up the West Coast. He found one of them that had turned to greenstone at Milford. As he posed to weep over her, some of his tears fell on the stone, which carries the marks ever since. He came upon his other wives at Ahaura River where they had also been turned to greenstone, together with their canoe. The names of Tamatea's three wives are now used to specify the three principal kinds of greenstone: Tangiwai, Kahurangi and Kawakawa.