We took the back beach road to Oamaru so we could enjoy what I think will be our last stretch of coastline in New Zealand, and it was striking even though the morning was rather grey.
Originally we were just stopping for groceries in Oamaru, but Chris noticed in the guidebook Steampunk HQ, and since recently he has been exploring this genre of fiction, he said we had to look. Oamuru is called the Whitestone City due to the cream coloured local limestone used in the beautiful ornate Victorian buildings in town and they have embraced all things Victorian. It is definitely the place to go for for vintage and antique shops, pre-loved items, and stalls selling everything under the sun and with jazz playing courtesy of the Jazz Weekend, it drew us in!
There was also the weekly farmers market where we tried the cheese roll, a local delicacy comprising a slice of white bread wrapped round a finger of tasty cheese and heated on a grill till the bread is toasted and the cheese molten … very tasty with very tasty award winning local cheese, but barely a mouthful!
Finally we made our way to Steampunk HQ, another example of that slightly wacky Kiwi inventiveness. So apparently Steampunk is a genre of science fiction featuring steam powered technology, often set in a futuristic version of Victorian England … well we all knew that, didn’t we! Take one town with a Victorian heritage, open a warehouse filled with all sorts of reclaimed metal tat, some of it welded to other bits, with a few skulls, and other horror motifs thrown in, keep the lighting low and charge people $10 to enter! The place was busy with the yard outside looking like Mad Max …
… and then inside there was an organ with different sound bites on the keys such as the Bach’s fugue, a recording of the moon landing, a bass drum beat and ‘all aboard’ which could be played on top of each other … maybe you had to be there!
The other attraction was The Portal, a small room with coloured lights and music, similar to one of the rooms in Odyssey in Auckland, where the mirrored walls give the impression of infinity, and according to Chris, the place you go to get transported either to the science fiction world of the future or back in time to Victoriana … or somewhere in between! Chris says best $20 we’ve spent this holiday!!!
Finally we move on, lunch by a lake on the way, then Omarama, where we went to see the Clay Cliffs. They are on private land at the end of a gravel drive, with a couple of gates and an honesty box requesting $5. We found eerie badlands of pinnacles, ridges, ravines and canyons made of softish claylike mud embedded with gravel of all shapes colours and sizes, reminiscent of views in Utah, just missing that red colour. can imagine they must be particularly stunning with a backdrop of blue sky, but even on a grey day they were impressive.
Next stop … MacKenzie Country …
Off Travelling Together 