Oamaru

April 21 - 24, 2026 - Oamaru.

Oamaru is a much bigger city than I thought. It is the largest town in North Otago with a population of ~14,000 people. It is famous for its exceptionally preserved 19th-century Victorian architecture built from local white limestone, the nightly return of little blue penguins, and its status as the Steampunk capital of New Zealand. We enjoyed our time here and rated it overall 7/10 for access, accommodation, charm and the pizza and beer.

April 21 - What a great journey North. Chris found a rather good site with recommendations for the journey and it was so much better than the Southern Route. It did take a full day!

The highlights of the day were:

Driving from Dunedin to Port Chalmers. While Port Chalmers was a bit of a disappointment, we ended up on a quiet road around the inlets of Port Chalmers and saw several spoonbills. There was also an amazing tree.

Our next stop was to be to be the Orokanui Bird Sanctuary - unfortunately it was closed today, so we continued on the Doctor's Point. This place is similar to Cathedral Beach. Cathedral Beach on a lot of videos and known for it's beach arches, but was closed on the day we drove by. Doctor's Point has beach arches and very few people. We managed to get there at low tide and had a lovely walk along the beach and through the arches.

Most of the day we paralleled a railway line and there were many level crossings. This one was called Michies Crossing.

Next stop was Seacliff and the ruins of the mental institution. This ended up being a beautiful park area. The Mental Institution ended up burning down - no one seems to know how the fire started, but several people died. There were some amazing mushrooms.

We stopped for a snack of a coffee and savory scone in Karitone. The scones in NZ taste like US biscuits and nothing like UK scones. Now that I realize that, I'm not disappointed when I eat one.

Near the lunch stop was a lovely walk around the Huriawa Peninsula which is known for this lovely view.

We were looking forward to the next stop, the Matakana Farm Buildings which are the oldest surviving farm buildings in New Zealand. These were supposed to be open, but they were closed,

so we moved on to the highlight of our day - the Moeraki Boulders.

These boulders take millions of years to form and look like something from outer space. The Moeraki Boulders are large, spherical septarian concretions formed about 60 million years ago within Paleocene mudstone on the sea floor. They grew over 4–5 million years as calcite cement precipitated around a nucleus, such as shell fragments, creating hardened masses. Coastal erosion later uncovered these boulders from cliffs of soft mudstone.

Key Facts on Formation:

• Geological Origin: They are not rocks that rolled here; they grew in place like concrete.

• Process:

  Calcium carbonate (calcite) cement gradually precipitated around a central core in buried marine sediment, a process taking up to 5.5 million years.

• Composition: They consist of mud, fine silt, and clay bound together by calcite.

• Septaria Cracks: The boulders often contain cracks filled with calcite, known as septaria, formed by internal shrinkage.

So cool!

Finally, we stopped at Kakanui Beach which is known as a place to find paua shells. I started to rain and, thankfully, Chris was able to quickly find a shell.

On to Oamaru.

Our AirBnB is in a weird place, across from the Milligan's food warehouse (picture a bunch of warehouses with chainlink/barb wire fencing), but it is within walking distance of the shopping district of Oamaru. It is a cottage completed in 1868 and is very cosy with the exception of the placement of the bathroom. We have to walk through the entire cottage to reach the bathroom which was a challenge in the middle of the night. Chris has already hit his head on the bathroom ceiling. It's clear that this was a later add-on. In general though, this is a much nicer place than the last one.

There is an interesting graffiti on the inside of the kitchen wall (evidence the kitchen was added on and this used to be an outside wall). Jack Hollow carved his name. Just next to it is a small shadow box with his photo and the notice that he was KIA. It is almost ANZAC Day (25th) which makes it a bit more poignant.

April 22 - We had several activities planned for today. We are very close to the botanic gardens, so started with a walk there. The Fall colors are really starting to come out.

before walking up to the city overlook. It was a beautiful day so the views were great.

On the way back we walked through the historic downtown area

I could have used some of this remedy (still not feeling 100%)

We planned to go down to see the small blue penguins come back to roost, but decided against it. They wanted to charge about 40GBP for the privilege of sitting in the cold for 2 hours and not being able to take any photos. Since I'll be be seeing a lot of penguins in December, we decided to give it a miss.

April 23 - Today was beautiful weather and the temperatures are decreasing, reminding us that winter is coming to the Southern Hemisphere.

We started the day with a tour of the Whitestone Cheese Factory and cheese tasting.

The cheese was good and we ended up buying NZ177 in cheese (about GBP90). I plan to hide Chris' credit card soon.

On the way back we had to stop at the Rainbow factory store. I can never have enough jelly beans....

Next we went to the Steampunk HQ. At one point I thought we were in a warehouse where someone just dumped junk.

There were some interesting areas like this closed mirrored area that had a light show to music. https://www.facebook.com/share/r/179RFfGH9p/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Tomorrow we continue our trip North to Lake Takapo where I will next post in a few days' time.