The last of the wool trucks with 40 bales of wool on board. This remaining wool store holds about 1000 bales of wool.

An Oamaru wool press used during the manufacturing of woollen garments.

This what a Oamaru steam train looks like after it has been buried at sea for years.

The remains an Oamaru goods carriage once pulled by the train.

A blue eyed Penguins house.

Oamaru is a wonderful town with beautiful Oamaru Stone Buildings but it has not always been that way as I found out after watching a film at the iSite centre on the history of Oamaru.

When Oamaru was first settled by the Europeans there were no trees so the settlers used Oamaru’s Whitestone to build their buildings. They built a port which was to become a major South Island port with up to 450 ship movements a year. With so many seamen all in search of entertainment the town grew to have 17 hotels and a further 32 unlicensed grog shops. The water was so bad in Oamaru that people took to beer drinking instead. There were many breweries in Oamaru and the story goes that one man drowned in a vat of beer. No one would drink the beer from that brewery after that because they said it had to much body in it!

In the film Oamaru claims the town was as big and as busy as Los Angles in the mid 1800’s but it was a New Zealand town that was notorious for crimes. By the 1890’s the town had come to a standstill, grain prices had dropped and Oamaru lost its port trade to bigger ports that could take bigger ships.

The Presbyterian movement made noises about the destruction alcohol was having on peoples lives so in 1906 the prohibition was introduced and the area became dry.

At one stage Oamaru was recorded as having the largest amount of debt in New Zealand and the town became frozen in time for nearly half a century. In the early 1990’s Oamaru people started looking at ways in which to revitalise their town. They decided that the one thing they had that was unique from any other town around the world was their Oamaru Whitestone and the magnificent buildings that were built by their early pioneers during the towns more prosperous years. They formed an organisation called The Whitestone Civic Trust and a group of enthusiastic people started to restore the old buildings. They got out their old penny farthing bicycles and their early Victorian clothing and began telling the world that they had something unique and special to sell and that something was nostalgia.

They also commercialised their bird life and promoted their rare blue eyed penguins. Tourists from all around started coming to visit Oamaru and after experiencing something that no other town in the world can offer they told others and the town soon found itself again.

Oamaru with its fantastic historic Whitestone buildings is an experience that you should never miss when you travel along the centre of the South Island on State Highway One.

Read about business success stories from East Oamaru » page 1 • » page 2