Oamaru

Oamaru is the largest town in North Otago on the South Island of New Zealand. The village is located on State Highway 1, 80 kilometers south of Timaru and 120 kilometers north of Dunedin on the Pacific coast, and is the administrative seat of the Waitaki District.

Its historic status as the second most important village, behind Dunedin Centre in Otago, is in danger, as the city of Queenstown in the central Otago continues to grow in importance because of its tourist trade.

The name Oamaru comes from the Maori and means “place of Maru.” The exact identity of “Maru” is not known, so only guesses can be made.

History

There have been significant archaeological discoveries in the area around Oamaru, especially Awamoa at the mouth of the Waitaki River where the archaic Maori hunters left behind traces from the 1100’s, when the New Zealand Maori population was concentrated mainly on the east coast of South Island.

According to James Cook’s journal, on February 20, 1770 he was with the Endeavour three kilometers away from the coast and very close to the mouth of the Waitaki. He noted that the country was very flat and the hilly hinterland only beginning 4-5 miles inland. The area seemed very empty and showed no sign of inhabitants. He anchored there for four days.

Isolated Maori seal hunters, who had begun to hunt the New Zealand seals, actually lived in the region and settled it in 1814. After 1831, under the leadership of the Maori tribal chief Te Rauparaha, the pa at Kaiapoi near Christchurch was pillaged. The refugees moved south and settled in the area between Kakanui and Pukeuri and near Waianakarua, including the territory of the present-day town of Oamaru.

Edward Shortland visited the region over the land route from Waikouaiti in 1844. He made a map of the region and also firmly mapped Oamaru. He was one of several Europeans who explored the region on foot in the 1840s. James Saunders explored around 1850. One of the first European government representatives of the district, he had settled in this area in order to deal with the Maori at the Waitaki estuary.

In the 1850s more and more European settlers arrived in the area, including Hogh Robison, who built a hut made of sod at the Oamaru River in 1853. In 1859, the site was declared a city by J.T. Thomson. Oamaru grew into a center for the agricultural hinterland between the Kakanui Mountains and the Waitaki River. In addition, Port of Cape Wanbrow grew into an important commercial and fishing port.

The development of the frozen meat industry, which originated in nearby Totora, led to an economic surge at Oamaru. Institutions such as the Athenaeum, the Waitaki Boys High School and the Waitaki Girls High School were founded. The local limestone was very suitable for further processing; in a sense, the artisans who shaped the limestone also shaped the city. In the period of the 1880s Depression, Oamaru was financially one of the finest and strongest cities in Australasia.

After the boom subsided, the population grew still further until the 1970s. The decline of New Zealand’s industry and the closure of the port hit Oamaru very hard. As a result, Oamaru is remembered as one of the first cities to be New Zealand’s architectural heritage and its commercial exploitation.

A public gallery, the Forrester Gallery, was opened in 1983 in the neoclassical building of The Bank of New South Wales. Other buildings have also been restored. A trust fund has been opened and promotes the restoration of the historic harbor district. With the beginning of the twenty-first century, Oamaru’s focus on its cultural heritage has become an important economic factor.

Attractions

Many public buildings were built with the local limestone, which was dismantled near Winston and is known under the name “Oamaru stone.” The area of Oamaru’s southern district is considered to have one of the most impressive of New Zealand’s streets, which is due to the limestone buildings. Both this district and the harbor district are to be preserved for their historical heritage.

Most streets are named after British rivers, especially after those rivers in the northwest and southeast of the country. The main street is Thames Street; other major roads are Severn Street and Tyne Street.

There is an area of the port that is home to a colony of blue penguins, known as the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony. Directly south of the city, lies a colony of yellow-eyed penguins. Previously, penguins occasionally lived among some of the beachfront buildings, including a music club called Club Penguin.

Oamaru is in the Waitaki Valley on the eastern gateway to the Mackenzie Basin. The place name is a Shibboleth: The local southern dialect of the Maori ignores the first A in the name (AUH-muh-ROO). Maori with the northern dialect tend to describe this (correct) pronunciation as incorrect.

They expand the A (o-UH-muh-ROO). Thus, for the basis of place names, pronunciation can tell if the speaker is from the north or the south.