Things to do in Oamaru

What Oamaru is famous for

Two things, and they are next to each other. The first is the stone. Oamaru stone is a soft white limestone quarried near Weston, just inland, easy to carve when fresh and hard once weathered, and the town used it for everything: columned banks on Thames Street, grain stores and wool warehouses on Harbour and Tyne Streets, churches, the courthouse. The Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust has been restoring the harbour end since 1987, and the old warehouses now hold galleries, craft workshops, cafes and second-hand shops. The Opera House on Thames Street opened in 1907 and still runs shows.

The second is the penguins. Little blue penguins, kororā, began nesting in a disused quarry by the harbour in the early 1990s, and volunteers started building them nesting boxes in 1992. That colony is now the town's biggest attraction, with more than 75,000 visitors a year. The Māori name, Ōamaru, means the place of Maru; who Maru was is not agreed.

There is a third thing, which is steampunk. Oamaru took to the genre with enthusiasm, set a Guinness record in 2016 for the largest steampunk gathering, and has Steampunk HQ in an old grain building in the precinct: part gallery, part junkyard, with a locomotive outside that comes to life with noise and smoke if you feed it a coin. 1 of our itineraries go in. People either love it or walk past it, and both are reasonable.

Seeing the penguins

The blue penguin colony is on Waterfront Road, a ten minute walk from the Victorian precinct. The birds spend the day at sea feeding and come ashore in rafts after sunset, cross the rocks and waddle up to their nest boxes while you watch from a grandstand. The premium seats are closer to the path the birds use. Photography is not allowed during the evening viewing, because flash and light hurt their eyes, so leave the camera in the bag and watch. Numbers vary with the season and are highest in the breeding season, from spring into summer.

Yellow-eyed penguins, hoiho, are a different animal: taller, rarer, endangered, and shy. A few pairs nest at Bushy Beach, just south of town, where a track leads to a hide on the clifftop. Late afternoon is when they come in. Stay in the hide or on the track and well away from them; a hoiho that sees people on the sand may stay at sea rather than feed its chicks. Our guide to where to see penguins, whales and dolphins covers the rest of the coast, including the Otago Peninsula colonies near Dunedin.

Things to do in Oamaru by day

• Walk the precinct: Harbour and Tyne Streets, then up to the banks and the Opera House on Thames Street. An hour at a stroll, longer if the shops catch you.
• The public gardens: among the oldest in the country, with a Japanese garden and a band rotunda from 1912. A short walk from the town centre, and good for a picnic.
• Whitestone Cheese: a family cheesemaker on the edge of town. 1 of our itineraries book the guided factory tour with wine matched to the cheeses.
• The Moeraki Boulders: about 40 km south on the road to Dunedin, a scatter of huge round concretions on the beach at Koekohe. Low tide is best; at high tide half of them are underwater. 1 of our itineraries stop there.
• The Alps 2 Ocean: the cycle trail from Aoraki / Mount Cook ends at Friendly Bay on the Oamaru waterfront. If you have ridden it, the harbour is where you finish.

Oamaru also sits at the centre of the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark, which became New Zealand's first UNESCO Global Geopark in 2023 and covers more than 7,200 square kilometres of the district: fossil beds, limestone formations, the Elephant Rocks inland near Duntroon, the Moeraki Boulders. It is a way of seeing the landscape rather than a single site to visit.

How to get to Oamaru

State Highway 1 runs straight through town, and so does the Main South railway line, though there is no regular passenger train on it. The drive from Christchurch is flat and straight across the Canterbury Plains; the drive to Dunedin gets more interesting after Moeraki, where the road follows the coast. Of our itineraries that stay the night, 4 arrive from Dunedin and 2 from Christchurch, and they head on to Christchurch on 4 and to Dunedin on 3.

The inland route up the Waitaki valley, past the hydro lakes and the Elephant Rocks, is the better way to link Oamaru with the Mackenzie Country than going back through Timaru. Dunedin airport, south of the city, is the other option for flights, about an hour and three quarters away.

How long to spend in Oamaru, and where to stay

One night is right for most people: arrive mid afternoon, walk the precinct, eat, see the penguins at dusk, and drive on after breakfast by way of the Moeraki Boulders. A lunch stop on the way between Christchurch and Dunedin gets you the buildings but not the penguins, which is the half most people remember. Two nights suits cyclists at the end of the Alps 2 Ocean, or anyone who wants a slow day on the coast.

Our itineraries use small places rather than hotels. The Old Confectionery Boutique Apartments take 2 of them. Highfield Mews takes 1 and Pen-y-bryn Lodge, in a large Victorian house, takes 1. Beyond those the town has plenty of motels along the main road, a holiday park by the harbour, and bed and breakfasts in the old villas. Tours through Oamaru start from NZ$1,960.

Oamaru weather and when to go

Oamaru is dry for New Zealand, about 640 mm of rain a year, because it sits in the lee of the Southern Alps. Summers are warm rather than hot, though a nor'wester can push it past 30°C, and winters are cool with the odd frost, rarely much below freezing. The penguins are here all year. The breeding season, from spring into summer, has the most birds at the colony, and in late summer and autumn they come ashore to moult, so numbers drop for a while after that. The town is busiest in the summer holidays and during the Victorian heritage and steampunk festivals, when beds go quickly.