Friday, November 12, 2010

Oamaru

If you were to look up "quaint old town" in an Encyclopedia Britannica, you might just find a photo of Oamaru. It's eerily quiet and charmingly vintage. It's the kind of place that when you ask a local youth what there is to do on a Friday evening, his response is: "Well, the train statue on Main Street blows blue smoke at night."

Popular activities in Oamaru include car-showing, craft-making, and penny-farthing.




While we didn't have the opportunity to fulfill my lifelong dream of riding a bicycle with a giant front wheel, we did peruse the local car show and craft markets before camping for free roadside with a great harbor view.


Some other highlights of our visit to Oamaru:

A Steampunk art exhibit, toying with the notion of "tomorrow as it used to be." Apparently a decades-old genre that I had never heard of, it showcased some really cool and entertaining stuff.


The Whitestone CHEESE FACTORY. Nothing gets my motor running quite like cheese samples. Especially when they are free. These folks also make the best blue cheese you will ever taste in your entire life, and the fact that they do not export it to the US should break your heart. It broke mine.


About a half hour outside of town, the perfectly spherical and magically intriguing Moeraki Boulders lie on a surreal stretch of beach.  These things are both huge and weird.



For our fun-filled photos of Oamaru, click HERE.

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