The Waitaki District Council in Oamaru

The drive from Christchurch to Dunedin was uneventful. Which is just what you want to be able to say when you are travelling on part of the national state highway network. I detoured around the towns of Ashburton and Timaru, past Temuka, Makikihi and Winchester, but by the time I reached Oamaru I was ready for a break. A place that is able to boast the country’s oldest public garden, stunning Victorian architecture, two penguin colonies and having been home to human habitation since around AD 1100. Oamaru is a very nice place. It has its own delightful charm that makes you feel relaxed. It’s also full of surprises. You feel like you’re driving through any other typical New Zealand town, but then you turn a corner and everything changes. Suddenly you’re faced with a splendid collection of Victorian buildings near the harbour that are constructed from local limestone which tell the story of how the town grew on the prosperity of exploring goods of  wool, grain and frozen meat from the 1860s and 1870s onwards. On this occasion, it was a quiet Sunday afternoon so I parked near the old colonial bank buildings near the harbour. I walked up one side of the street and back down the other before returning to my car and continuing the drive home.