Oamaru NZ

We headed south from Christchurch, hugging the east coast, on our way to Dunedin. To be honest, it was a very flat and boring drive. Then, there was Oamaru. Lonely Planet briefly mentioned a 'Victorian Precinct' in the town. It was a good location to stop for the night. We thought we'd have a look. The approach to the town was through the usual ugly strip malls and storefronts with plastic awnings defacing heritage buildings. We thought it was just another town, until we were absolutely blown away by the beauty and variety of the limestone architecture in the 'Precinct'. It is truly a national treasure. We've seen a lot of towns in NZ  by now and there's been absolutely nothing like it anywhere else. The town, to its credit, has realized the importance of its built heritage and formed the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust which now owns seventeen of the buildings http://www.victorianoamaru.co.nz/the-buildings.

Oamaru contains over 70 buildings registered as Category 1 or 2 Historic Places in the New Zealand Historic Places Trust register. Many of the buildings, originally grain and wool warehouses, have been repurposed and contain interesting second-hand bookshops, antique stores, artisan and sculpture studios, quality tourist shops, bakeries and cafes. There is still lots of scope for growth. Many of the buildings are still empty, just waiting for someone to bring all the storefronts and fittings/fixtures, still in original condition, back to their former glory. What an opportunity. The buildings, all adjacent to the waterfront and old port area of the town, combine to form an atmospheric area that transports you back in time.

To think, that a small provincial town in NZ, the population today is only 14,000, could have buildings like these, as good as you'd have seen in London at the time, seems an impossibility, but, here they are. Not just one, but, many, many fine examples all packed into just three streets, without a modern interloper to spoil the streetscape anywhere in their midst.