Oamaru Victorian Precinct

Oamaru grew rich shipping wool and grain in the 1870s and 1880s, and it built accordingly. The warehouses and stores along Harbour and Tyne Streets are made of the local limestone, which is soft enough to saw and carve when freshly quarried and hardens on exposure, so a small port town ended up with columned facades, heavy cornices and pediments on buildings meant for storing sacks. The precinct survived because the town's fortunes faded and nobody had reason to redevelop it. It now holds a bookbindery, a working letterpress, galleries, a whisky store and the town's improbable steampunk scene, with penny farthings for hire on the street outside.

What you actually see

• Harbour and Tyne Streets - the two-street core of carved limestone warehouses and stores.
• The working trades - bookbinding, letterpress printing and other craft workshops in the old buildings.
• The grand public buildings - the opera house, courthouse and former banks a block uphill.
• The steampunk collection - the town's brass and boiler-plate installation in one of the warehouses.

When to go

Late spring to early autumn, when hours are longest and the stone looks best in warm light. Many businesses keep short or seasonal hours and Mondays can be close to dead, so a weekend or a Friday is safer. The Victorian heritage celebrations in November fill the precinct with period dress and penny farthings and also fill the town's accommodation.

Honest expectations

It is two streets and can be walked in an hour if nothing is open. Several shops keep unpredictable hours out of season, which undercuts the whole visit if you have driven for it. The limestone weathers poorly and some facades are visibly patched and stained. The steampunk overlay either delights people or strikes them as an odd graft onto a genuine heritage precinct. Oamaru otherwise offers little.

Nearby

The little blue penguin colony sits at the harbour edge and the Moeraki Boulders are half an hour south.