Oamaru or Europe? oh - and Moeraki

 

 

Oamaru has New  Zealand's best preserved Victorian streetscapes - they should make movies here .... you could think you were in Europe.  

The impressive Oamaru stone architecture is testament to what a booming town Oamaru was at one time. The port is famous for sending the worlds first frozen export meat around the world.  There must have been a great deal of trade, check out two of the magnificent bank buildings well preserved in the town centre. There are so many impressive buildings, churches and streets all with Victorian architecture ...it's incredible. 

Like so many South Island boom towns, times have been hard and the town relies on agriculture, small fishing fleets and more recently  it has become New Zealand's steam punk centre - people travel from all over NZ and Australia for steam punk conventions!

Not to be missed on any coastal lap of the south island, the Moeraki Boulders are fascinating. 

They originally started forming in ancient sea floor sediments around 60 million years ago, and the largest boulders are estimated to have taken about 4 million years to get to their current size.

The boulders can be seen at low tide and you can see the cracks  from thousands of years of heating and cooling and erosion. 

New boulders are slowly being revealed through natural erosion along the seabed and coastline. 

The little village of Moeraki is as 'cute as a button' and has a small fishing wharf and a small settlement of houses. The famed 'Fleurs Place' restaurant used to be open here but it didn't make it through Covid unfortunately.