Oamaru (pronounced: Oh ah mar rue)

Made it back from the Sound, as we Kiwi’s call it, and headed for Oamaru, our next stop on the NZCWT (New Zealand Country Wide Tour).

Oamaru was selected for two reasons, first it is close to the Braided Rivers and excellent fishing, second STEAMPUNK!  Not really, second was the blue penguin colony but there is a Steampunk museum that we will visit.

Our abode in this city was a turn of the century Victorian home converted into a B&B and ran by Allan and Keri, two great hosts with tons of information about Oamaru and New Zealand in general. But I’m getting ahead of myself, first we have the 4hr drive through the NZ countryside. Very easy drive and on surprisingly enough, straight roads.  Guess the West coast paid more for their roads than the East coast folks.

Anywho, with a little help from Carmen the Garmin made it to Oamaru. Trying to find the house was a bit of a challenge but we pushed on and success, Braemar House! 

Located in a small hilltop neighborhood, Braemar House was at one time the swankiest home in the area, actually taking up all of the hilltop with the home and gardens. Views from this home are wonderful, and so were the accommodations. Furnished with tons of nostalgic memorabilia from an earlier era, the home is comfortable and quite large for a B&B. Our space is on the first floor with a living room, a sitting room that has a fireplace, a bedroom and a mini-kitchen. Time to unpack and see if the vino survived the ride.

Looks like everything made it so off to town for dinner. The only drawback to staying in a B&B is we can’t cook so the savings from eating in rather than dining out are minimal. But, this also gives us a chance to enjoy local cuisine and do a little people watching. Next stop Fat Sally’s.

Driving into downtown

Downtown Oamaru

Fat Sally’s

Nice restaurant in the downtown Oamaru that has a pretty good menu and yes, serves wine! So had a good dinner and was in the process of finishing our bottle of Pinot when this dude came around with a trivia game package and asked if we wanted to play. Hell yes, one of the categories was music, a sure thing for Collette. Well we quickly found out that we are not in tune with NZ trivia, but we had fun anyway.

Tomorrow we explore the area and hit up the Steampunk Museum!