Beautifully frozen in time
Arriving in Ōamaru, you almost feel as if you’ve been transported back in time. According to Whitestone City, the mini heritage museum within the town’s Victorian Precinct, Ōamaru was once as large and as busy as Los Angeles. With 17 hotels, a large harbour, rolling treeless hills ready to farm, and the close-by Otago Gold Rush in full swing, Ōamaru in the late 1800s was a prosperous place. And with this prosperity came growth.
Grain production boomed, wool exports took off, and a plentiful supply of local limestone meant construction kept going and going. The town grew to be a large and thriving place, attracting European settlers with a pioneering attitude. You can almost imagine the hustle and bustle as you walk down Harbour Street.
But then everything suddenly changed. In the 1890s, commodity prices of grain went into decline. The harbour became less attractive as ships needed larger ports, and
