Oamaru

What a charming town Oamaru is. We had no expectations as neither of us had heard a lot about Oamaru, and we were very pleased not to listen to someone who told us the place was a bit of a hole. We felt the warmth of the town envelope us as we drove in and we were immediately charmed by the architecture. Once we started walking around we were further charmed by the people. Down here there seems to be none of  the “how are you today” greetings that are uttered while doing something else and not looking you in the eye (therefore a platitude without meaning). The people here seem to be genuinely friendly, always up for a chat, and always smiling.

Oamaru is famous for three things – it’s Victorian architecture in the Historic Quarter; its penguin colony (and the fur seals that are nearby waiting to grab a penguin, and the gardens.

We first chose to walk through the Historic Quarter. Parking for the motorhome in the central city was easy which was surprising because most places don’t consider motorhomer’s too much. We walked through the buildings and some of the shops that house the antiques. Other places though, such as the old woolstore building are still in operation as a woolstore and we were able to peak at all the bales stacked up inside.

Some of the buildings have been converted to the inevitable bars, cafes and restaurants.

Other old buildings are being used to house old stuff.

All the buildings are made of Oamaru stone, with the exception of one lonely red brick building.

What is more impressive is the state of repair of all these old buildings. We saw one that looked a bit sad, but the others looked like someone gives a damn.

The church pictured above is St Lukes Anglican Church and we went inside for a look. The land was bought for the church in 1862 for the princely sum of 50 pounds and building started in 1866. It was built in 3 stages and is simply beautiful inside.

Bruce’s highlight for the day was finding the best ciabatta bread in a little craft bakery in the old historic quarter.

We stayed in a camping ground for the night, so we went and got that organised and also walked the dogs before having a quick snack and driving to the the old wharves. We had booked in for a penguin colony tour. The little blue penguins come ashore at disk every evening to go back to their burrows and feed their chicks. We were advised to arrive early for the tour to get seats in the area of the stand that would give us the best view.

Before we went in we saw the  old wooden wharf that was built in 1862 – the first curved wharf of its kind. It is no longer in use by humans but the shags have taken it over as a roosting place. They certainly make their prescence known with the smell of them.

We also spied the seals who were lazing about in the sun, obviously biding their time until the little blue penguins came ashore and provided them with a chance of a late dinner. We could see them lumbering into the water at dusk.

The penguins themselves were wonderful. We were not allowed to take any pictures, so the ones I have are “borrowed”. They came ashore in groups called rafts, and we could here them chirping before we could see them. Then they hopped up their little rocky path to the nest boxes created for them by the complex. Because they are predator free here, the numbers have tripled over the last few years.

The penguins are not really made for walking, so they look quite clumsy. We were amazed though at the size difference between some of the birds. They are supposed to be about 1 liko, but some a lean and some quite portly. The portly one almost looked like they were not going to be able to manage the trek because they looked more awkward that the lean ones. They all got there though and as we made our way out of the complex we could see the birds at their nesting boxes. I saw one poor parent being chased by two chicks that aggressively wanted to be fed and were not going to take no for an answer. We also saw two other downy “fluffballs” of chicks, sitting outside their burrow cheeping for their parents to arrive. The birds seems familiar with the presence of humans so did not try to run away or hide as we walked past them, within about a metre of them.

In all we saw about 110 penguins land and it was an experience I would recommend. Shame about photos though, but I can understand the reasons why. One thing though, it was very cold.

We enjoyed our stay in Oamaru, and after another trip back into the historic quarter to get Bruce another loaf of ciabatta and a custard croissant, we headed off into the wild blue yonder – in the direction of Moeraki.