History, popular culture and penguins all in one place
One of the places that surprised and delighted me most on a three-week, self-drive tour of New Zealand’s South Island was Oamaru on the island’s east coast, approximately 250km south of Christchurch and 120km north of Dunedin.
It has history and popular culture in abundance, is surrounded by unique geological gems and is home to the cutest little blue penguins.
When it comes to heritage buildings, Oamaru delivers. The town was established in the 1850s, with streets named after British rivers — including Thames, Severn, Tyne, Tees, Itchen and Humber. The town boomed in the 1860s and 1870s on the back of thriving grain and wool industries, with a harbour developed for their export. From Oamaru’s port, frozen meat was transported around the world, with refrigerated steamers travelling as far as to the UK.
During the boom years, a stunning “Whitestone City” was established featuring buildings made of local limestone. A walking tour of the historic whitestone architecture of Oamaru today will take you past more than 20 beautiful buildings, many in the Italianate and Classical styles of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
These include the ANZ Bank, originally the Bank of Otagao, built in 1871, and the Forrester Gallery (1883), formerly the Bank of New South Wales, both featuring Corinthian columns. Union Bank (1878) was one of the earliest examples of Venetian palazzo architecture in New Zealand. The former Harbour Board Office, built in 1876, features the ornate Venetian Renaissance style. Also ornate is Smith’s Grain Store (1881), which could hold 30,000 sacks of grain in the region’s grain boom.
The town’s first post office (1864), now a restaurant, is Oamaru’s oldest surviving public building. The town’s second post office, which replaced it in 1883, is a far more elegant and ornate building, now home to the district council. It was originally built without a clock tower, with the 28m-high tower added in 1903. More recent, but equally stunning, is the Opera House, opened in 1907.
The Criterion Hotel, built in 1877 in the Italianate style, has an interesting past, including being closed when Oamaru and the surrounding district went dry in 1906, with prohibition not ending until 1962. You can definitely buy a drink at the Criterion now.
The Criterion Hotel marks the start of the town’s Heritage Precinct, an authentic Victorian commercial streetscape, featuring preserved Victorian buildings and decked out with Victorian artefacts. The precinct includes the Whitestone City museum in a former grain store highlighting the town’s rich history, and the Victorian Wardrobe where you can dress up in Victorian costumes. If you visit in November, you can completely immerse yourself in Victorian times during the week-long heritage celebrations, from 12-15 November 2026.
Capitalising on its Victorian heritage, Oamaru is also home to Steampunk HQ, a fun interactive museum featuring retro-futuristic sci-fi art, movies, sculpture and sound. Steampunk is a genre of science fiction that is often set in a futuristic version of 19th century Victorian England, featuring steam-powered technology.
Oamaru’s Steampunk HQ is in the perfect location, housed in an 1880s Oamaru stone Grain Elevator building close to the Victorian precinct. Even if you don’t go inside to view the quirky features of the Workshop, Portal and Gadgetorium, a wander around the building is worthwhile. You can’t miss it, with a steam locomotive and a blimp out the front.
A walk through the neighbouring Harbourside Gardens provides a great view of some of the quirky sculptures on the Steampunk building, including a fisherman with a giant hook and a swarm of flies. The Steampunk theme cleverly continues through the town, including in playgrounds.
And then there are the penguins, little blue ones to be precise, the world’s smallest. Oamaru Penguins conducts vital conservation and research into the penguins, as well as providing a safe place to nest and breed.
By day, you can learn all about the penguins in the Discovery Centre or by evening, watch hundreds of little penguins waddle onshore and return to their nests from a day of fishing. During our evening viewing we witnessed approximately 200 little penguins returning to the colony, as well as a number of stragglers in the carpark afterwards. Just out of town at Bushy Beach Scenic Reserve you might also catch a glimpse of yellow-eyed penguins.
Oamaru is part of Waitaki Whitestone Geopark, the only UNESCO Global Geopark in Oceania, featuring unique geological and cultural heritage. Geological gems within the Geopark include Elephant Rocks north of the town with its ancient giant karst limestone landscape, and to the south the Moeraki Boulders which are large spherical boulders formed in ancient seafloor mud millions of years ago. Also heading south, you will pass the ancient volcano Puketapu overlooking Palmerston.
If you tackle the 315km Alps2Ocean cycle trail, you’ll end your journey in Oamaru. The trail starts in the Southern Alps at Mount Cook/Aoraki and wends its way through stunning Mackenzie country and the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark, past lakes and rivers and culminating in the Pacific Ocean at Oamaru.
Oamaru really does have so much to offer.
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whitestonegeopark.nz
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