Oamaru known as 'The White Stone city' boasts the best preserved collection of historic commercial buildings in the country. Many of the buildings are made of a local limestone which became valuable after it was discovered it could be sawn after it was quarried. The rock hardens when exposed to air, which made it perfect for use as a building material in an area where timber was in short supply and expenive. The nineteenth century sailors called the town 'The White Lady by the sea'.
The beautiful old council buildings in Oamaru.
More of the white limestone buildings, looking down one side of the street.
Standing in the middle of the road to show how wide the streets are. Two lanes each side of the strip in the middle where you can park your cars.
Harbour St
Above and below, really old historic part of town around the back of the main street in Harbour and Tyne streets nearer the port.
Tyne St
Unused old wharf out at the port covered in Shags just sitting there. No Penquins to be seen.
Carved in Limestone.
Oamaru was a nice town with wide streets with many of the old buildings made with the white limestone as early as 1864-1900. A colony of Penguins can often be viewed at the end of Waterview Rd where the birds come ashore around dusk so therefore we missed them.
We went through areas near the coast with this foggy sea mist then when we went inland a little it was clear skies.
After we left Oamaru we headed south out to the coast just past Hampden to the Moeraki Boulders on the beach.
The large boulders scattered along the beach at Moeraki formed over a period of 4 million years around a central limestone crystal core. Two of these boulders were found to contain dinosaur bones. Seals and Penguins can be seen along this beautiful coastline. We only briefly saw dolphins.
Moeraki Boulders . We had to walk down the cliffs from the restaurant above where we had lunch which looked over the beach
Looking down to the beach from the Restaurant
Seafood chowder we had for lunch, yummy
We then drove further south through Palmerston and just before Waikouaiti turned off and headed out to to the coast to Matanaka. Went down three kms of metal road across a farm open to the public to see buildings surviving from Otago's first farm sitting up high and overlooks a long sweep of coastline. Around the 1840's the farm was established. The buildings include a stable, storehouse,granary, and schoolhouse. It was a five minute walk from where we parked the car to see these fascinating old buildings perched high above the sea. It was interesting.
Above and below the old historic farm buildings
As we drove down of the farm this is the bay below beautiful long sandy bech and nobody to be seen.
This was taken looking out to sea behind the old farm buildings.
After our walk out to see these well preserved historic buildings we headed further south down to Dunedin. The sea fog wasn't here as there was quite a breeze. We had a coffee then went for a walk around town. Looked inside the Speights Pub (factory) thinking that we might come back for a meal but decided against that and ended up having dinner at the Motel.Walked down to see the old rail station beautiful old building, went to countdown and back to motel. We have two nights here so places to see tomorrow and then tomorrow night catching up with one of Petes old school mates at his house for dinner. The weather is a little cooler as we travel south only 19 degrees here in Dunedin but nice to get out of the Auckland humidity.
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