15/10/2017
HISTORY REPEATS — This is a story I wrote about 15/16 years ago for NZ TODAY magazine. Things have changed, but I have left the story mainly as it was written in 2000/2001
WHITESTONE
There’s more, much more to Oamaru and North Otago than the birthplace of Janet Frame. It’s an historic, diverse land and one of the most fascinating places in New Zealand. Share the secret of Whitestone Waitaki.
Story and pictures by Allan Dick
Honesty time. I’m nosy. And I have a touch of aggression with my nosiness. So it was a situation that was tailor¬made for me — to stop, check out what was going on — and have a bit of a yarn. I’m on SH1, in North Otago, south of Oamaru, and the southern end of the long straight that climbs up through the small township of Herbert. Like most of small town New Zealand, Herbert has changed dramatically in recent years. It’s gone backwards. The historic Herbert Four Square Store is closed after more than 100 years of service to the district, and is now a “Gallery”.
But there was a growth industry in Herbert that day as I was heading back up SH 1 from a coastal drive south of Oamaru. The Highway Patrol was out in force!
My route had taken me out of town via Beach Road, along a huge coastline and into Kakanui. There are few houses, but this is market-garden country. To my left was field after field of cool weather crops — mainly brussel sprouts as far as I could tell. To my left, the magnificent beach and coastline.
This area is rich and arable, the soil dark and fine, where market gardeners, mainly of Chinese heritage, work hard and, in good seasons, make good money. Remember the Gloria Kong kidnapping of 35 years ago? A couple of local drongoes thought they’d make a fast and easy buck and snatched the young Chinese schoolgirl and held her captive for several days before they were, inevitably, busted. Gloria and her family came from this region.
And Kakanui’s famous for its hot-house tomatoes. South of Kakanui, the market gardens disappear to be replaced by grazing land — cattle and sheep. I joined up with SH1 at the Mill House at Waianakarua, turned right and was heading back towards Oamaru. As I rounded a corner, and started heading down the long Herbert Straight, there they were — two yellow and blue liveried patrol cars of the nation’s finest. Parked nose to tail on my side of the road — and they were doing business.
They had a customer — an elderly man in a ten-year old Mitsubishi. He’d been heading south and was talking to the sun-glass wearing upholders of the Highway Code, while two elderly women waited, patiently, in the car for the man to finish having his details taken, the exchange of documentation which would spell out how much his crime was going to cost him, and how many demerit points he’d earned.
The stretch of SH 1 from the Waitaki Bridge through North Otago and on to Dunedin has always been well-patrolled by law enforcers. Years of experience, when I lived in Dunedin, taught me to be particularly careful in watching the speedometer of my car through here — and to be aware of signs telling you you are entering a restricted area. Otherwise you’re going to get busted. It’s probably the toughest area in New Zealand.
But two of the new Highway Patrol cars — and that meant two officers as well — at the one spot, on a bright and warm early spring morning when traffic was light? Two? It seemed like a bit of overkill. And their current customer didn’t really seem to be the archetypal lunatic driver. He looked like someone’s kindly grandfather.
So, being nosy, I stopped. Maybe “something” big was going on that I, as a motoring journalist, should know about.
As it turned out, I did learn something that morning at the roadside.
I waited and was surprised. The “customer” was actually laughing and chatting animatedly to the two cops. He almost appeared to be getting some pleasure out of being handed a speeding infringement notice. And if the two elderly grey-haired ladies waiting in the car were mortified that their man had been caught doing a criminal act, they didn’t show it. They too were chatting and didn’t appear at all concerned about what was happening across the road.
The man walked back to his car, carrying his ticket, waved and smiled as he drives off.
I introduced myself to one of the officers — “Oh yes, I know who you are, our bosses keep us in touch with what you have to say about road safety — glad to meet you, at last”. And he proffered his hand!
What was going on here? This wasn’t the way it was meant to be.
The customer who’d just departed in his Mitsubishi should have been purple with rage, and these cops should have been surly and uncommunicative. And I could have unleashed my aggression. Instead I was being charmed!
I was undone!
There had been a speeding problem up through the township for a long time and the two officers were out on patrol making a concerted effort to bring the speeds down. “And it’s working. There’s been a noticeable drop-off in speed” — and music to my ears — “particularly with trucks.”
So we spent five minutes yarning in the sun. It was a pleasant morning. And a pleasant conversation. “What brings you south from Auckland?” I was asked.
“Oh, doing a feature story on North Otago,” I responded.
“We’re both from Auckland. Arrived here just after last Xmas to set up the first of the Highway Patrols in this district,” I was told.
One of the officers had been with the Commercial Vehicle Unit in Auckland, having to deal with all of the problems that trucks bring to the Big Smoke. The other had been a cop in South Auckland — surely one of the toughest beats in Auckland. Both had been in high-stress, high trauma jobs. Now here they were in North Otago. Chalk and cheese. Black and white. Sweet and sour. The contrast could not have been greater.
“We love it — particularly now that the weather’s picking up. We’ve got lives again down here. People have values — take that man we just stopped. You saw him. No aggression. No drama. We stopped a local woman earlier today. We got her at 120km/h in a 60km/h area — her response was (checking his notes) — “fair enough, it’s my fault, been driving this road for years” — it would have been different in Auckland.
“We feel that we’ve reclaimed our lives; sold our house in Auckland that had a mortgage on it. Bought a better home here in Oamaru, and banked some money. No, this is great.”
It was story that I was to hear several times over the next couple of days.
Oamaru, and North Otago are one of the great secrets of New Zealand. Unless you’ve had some direct contact with it, it’s likely that you know very little, or anything about it. But that’s going to change. Oamaru and the North Otago District are on the cusp of a massive shift in direction and attitude that will make it one of the most important economic and tourist areas in New Zealand.
For decades the population of Oamaru has been declining. And the greater North Otago area has suffered through many years of drought. Life in the region hasn’t been easy for the past 40 or 50 years, but it’s bred in people a resilience.
When I lived in Dunedin, the region meant little to me. It was too close to my home to be a “destination”; and Oamaru was just a curse if I was heading north. You came into the town from the south, down the hill, across the railway line, turned left at the monument and then faced that long, slow, agonising drag out through the “50k” area, almost to the freezing works at Pukeuri before you could get the hammer down again.
Occasionally we stopped at the Lagonda Tearooms in the centre of Oamaru for cheese rolls and coffee.
About all that I knew about Oamaru was that one night, a long, long time before I was born, a ship travelling up the southern coast, hove to when the captain saw the lights of Oamaru. A boat was lowered and several men rowed to shore. They walked into town, woke the Postmaster and said that they had an urgent, and tragic message they needed telegraphed to London. The Postmaster woke the telegraph operator and the message was sent. The men went back to their boat, rowed out to their ship and continued on their way back to England.
That was how the world got to know that Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his team had perished after being beaten to the South Pole by Roald Amundsen.
I knew that Oamaru was also the home of a company of engineers and foundrymen — G T Gillies Ltd — who had bought up vast numbers of GMC army trucks, and spares after the war and refurbished them, selling them to farmers, contractors and the like.
But that was about the sum total of my knowledge of the area. If you have a literary interest, you may know that Oamaru was the hometown of troubled novelist Janet Frame.
If you have an interest in things automotive, you may know of Oamaru, in more recent years, as the home of “the Temperos”- a family run panel beating business that branched out into making replicas of classic cars like the D-Type Jaguar. They built and sold many of these hand-made classics before expanding their range to include Aston Martins and Ferraris as well. The Tempero cars gained an international reputation and put Oamaru on the classic car map around the world.
My ignorance of Oamaru, at least, was relieved when a mate, talented local architect, Murray Cockburn, asked me what I knew about his home town.
“Nothing,” I said. “Apart from the fact it’s boring.”
“Boring? BORING!! Come with me,” he thundered, and we piled into his Fiat 125 and he took me on a tour of the most incredible thing I had ever seen in New Zealand.
Oamaru had grown a bit like a lizard, or a snake. Shedding its skin and leaving its old parts behind. What I thought was Oamaru’s “Main Street” was, in fact the third that the town has had in its history — and the other two remained, locked in a North Otago time-capsule. Murray took me down to the wharf area to a quiet backwater, where there was a magnificent collection of massive Oamaru stone buildings. The originality of the buildings, the fading paintwork and signwriting and the general air of genteel neglect — all combined to capture a magic mood. Most were still in use then — there was the Lane’s Emulsion factory, wool stores, seed and grain merchants. And what was Lanes Emulsion? A tonic made of eggs, cream and fish (with a hefty slug of over-proof brandy for good measure) that was spooned into youngsters for generations, before McDonalds was invented. This was time-warp stuff. You expected horses and carriages, men in bowler hats.
From here Murray took me to the southern end of the main street — Thames Street — the part I didn’t know, the part south of the monument.
Here he showed me the rows of magnificent colonnaded buildings, the banks, the post office, the old hotels and large stores.
The architecture was grand and spectacular — and I hadn’t known about it. And all of the buildings were in that glorious Oamaru stone.
There, next to the huge, imposing edifice of the Chief Post Office with its central clock tower, was a small, almost Spanish looking building — low and squat with a short tower. Also built from Oamaru’s famous limestone.
“That’s the original Post Office,” said Murray. “Built about 1857; it’s one of the oldest buildings in daily use in New Zealand.”
That Cockburn tour took place in 1970. Since then the town, and the district has fascinated me.
At the same time something else happened that added to my growing fascination with the area. An equally long time ago, I was a passenger in a car that was taking part in a ten hour car trial — sort of orienteering on four wheels. You’re given a set of instructions, a map and told to try and follow the route at speeds well within the law.
Part of the route took us into a valley somewhere in North Otago — I had no idea where we were, because I had my head down navigating. When we stopped, and I looked up I was flabbergasted.
We were on a farm somewhere, on a vast grassed area, surrounded by Oamaru stone buildings — small two storied houses, stables, implement buildings and even a church. There was obviously a large house up a drive, but it was hidden from view by massive, mature trees.
It was all very “grand English Estate.” But what really stunned me was the collection of Boer War and World War One artillery scattered around on the grass.
In the centre was a large Oamaru stone cairn — a memorial to local soldiers who’d died in the Boer and Great wars. It was surrounded by artillery field pieces and further away were a number of massive guns used for coastal defenses around New Zealand.
What was this place? Who owned it? What was it doing here?
Nobody on that trial could tell me. That and the Cockburn Guided Tour, opened the doors on Oamaru and North Otago for me.
Since the launch of NZ TODAY one of the projects I’ve had in mind has been to share Oamaru and North Otago with the rest of New Zealand.
Since the great local body reformation conducted by the Labour Government in the late 1980s, Oamaru has been the “capital” of the North Otago District — one of the largest regions in New Zealand.
From the eastern corner, at the Waitaki river mouth, the region’s northern boundary is the river, all the way back up to Ohau, then south to take in Omarama, the Lindis Pass then south east, following the road known as The Pig Root some of the way, to a point on the coast near Flag Swamp about mid¬way between Waikouaiti and Palmerston. Waikouaiti (still Waka-wite to the locals, as it’s still Omaru to them as well) was planned by the early Otago businessman, politician, whaler, sheep farmer, entrepreneur and land-grabber, Johnny Jones, to be the capital of all of Otago. Jones’ plan to upstage the founders of Dunedin eventually came to nothing and Waikouaiti became the small rural and holiday centre it remains today.
Geographically North Otago is a diverse region — the south is rolling, productive country — green and arable, supporting horticulture as well as traditional mixed farming. The central and northern regions are dry and arid with a harsh beauty that is part Central Otago, part the Mackenzie country.
Underlying much of the central and southern areas is a bed of limestone, 40 metres thick which has been extensively mined, or quarried, for both building materials and, crushed, as agricultural lime. At one time, there were many operations, today only one remains, the Parkside Quarry out near Weston.
North Otago is not the only area of New Zealand to have massive limestone deposits — it’s just that this is the region that’s done more with it than any other.
Despite the natural hardships of the droughts, and despite the political and man-made policies that have seen small, and smaller town New Zealand decimated, Oamaru has fought back.
For several years there has been a conscious effort at marketing the town to “Aucklanders” as an alternative lifestyle place.
At the same time the town itself has realised its tourist potential, it was given the optional name of Whitestone City to reflect the large proportion of buildings constructed from the local stone — and the industry that continues today in quarrying the material.
Part of this self-help programme was dusting off the older end of town and giving it a fresh life of its own.
And it’s worked. The population decline has been arrested and it’s now stable. Tourist figures for this past year are up by a massive 57% over the same time the year before and there are significant new industries.
Getting to Oamaru is easy enough — if you live in the greater southern area. It’s on State Highway One midway between Timaru and Dunedin. But it’s not so easy if you live in Auckland and want to make a quick and cost-effective trip. There is an airport at Oamaru. It’s owned and maintained by the District Council, but it’s off the regular commercial airline schedule and is really only used by enthusiasts in the weekends. Oamaru Airport had its moment of glory, and regular use, back in 1980 during the great Otago floods that devastated much of the province and which shut down Dunedin’s Momona Airport for months. Oamaru was pressed into service handling regular Fokker Friendship flights, with a bus service to and from Dunedin completing the journey.
If you are an Aucklander with the trip that we had in mind, there are two options. Fly to Dunedin, arrange a car and spend 80 minutes or so driving north. Or fly to Christchurch, arrange a car and spend four or five hours driving south.
Being of Scottish descent, we chose the latter. There is rivalry and competition between Air New Zealand and Qantas on the main trunk, inter-city routes — as far south as Christchurch. It’s possible to shop around and get a reasonably good (read affordable) deal; as long as you are only flying to Christchurch. Want to go further south and you’ve got Air New Zealand only — no competition and prices so steep you imagine the booking agent must have thought you meant somewhere international.
There were three of the NZ TODAY team heading south to Oamaru — myself, Gavin Shaw and John Register. So Christchurch was the only (affordable) option, where we’d arranged to have a brand new Mazda 6 station wagon — the Blue Arrow — fuelled and waiting at the kerbside for our getaway off our Qantas flight.
It was a glorious, crisp morning as we headed out of Christchurch down the interminably long Canterbury Straights, across what used to be called the Trans¬Rakaia Desert. That was in the era before irrigation turned the harsh, desolate stony ground into something closer to lush, than sand.
While we were on “Project North Otago”, I took an hour’s break so that the rest of the team could enjoy the famous Seafood Chowder at Benny’s Cafe in Temuka, and then a detour so we could all pay homage at one of the most important places on the face of the planet, in terms of 20th and 21st century living — the spot where eccentric Temuka farmer Richard Pierce crash-landed after making the first, successful, heavier than air flight by any human being — several months before the much more heralded efforts by the Wright Brothers at Kittyhawk.
Our first mission in North Otago was to solve the mystery of the military collection that I had first seen almost 30 years ago. Being honest, that’s being a bit melodramatic as the mystery had already been partly solved.
John Register, a Christ’s College old-boy, had recently attended a reunion of these good fellows and true in Christchurch and had met up with an old school chum, Tim Nichols, who was now the keeper of Kuriheka Estate — the great, great grandson of the founder.
We were invited for a visit.
Firstly though, we checked into the Brydone Hotel in the centre of town — a very old limestone structure that dates back to the glory days. Oamaru went dry in the depressing era of prohibition and remained that way until 1957 when the residents decided that they’d had enough of sly-grogging, or making lightning visits to Georgetown up the Waitaki Valley, to the nearest pub and they voted in Trust control. Today, the North Otago Licensing Trust continues to operate.
My old mate Murray Cockburn designed a couple of taverns for the Trust, including the Northside Seven, on the outskirts of Oamaru, and that at Hampden a bit further south on SH 1. Both were clean, modern, timeless designs that were a bit of a land¬mark. I was saddened to see, on this visit, that the Northside Seven has had a garish “facelift” that destroyed much of the simplicity of Cockburn’s design. But on to Kuriheka, where time has stood still.
Kuriheka Estate is at the end of a road inland from Maheno. And it’s steeped in European New Zealand history.
“The Colonel”, Colonel Nichols, arrived in North Otago in the 1880s via Australia. He settled in North Otago and bought the giant run which had already been established by earlier European land-owners.
He became active in both business and the North Otago Army Garrison. During both the Boer and Great Wars, he was the military commander for Otago and had the Army Drill Hall built in Dunedin.
The Colonel was also an early partner in the company which eventually became the leading stock and station agent, Dalgety & Company. When Dalgety bought him out, there wasn’t enough money to pay him in cash, so the Colonel was given the mortgages held by the company on many of the major, household name, high-country stations.
In 1931, the government of the time, facing the international crisis of The Great Depression, introduced legislation which was, in effect, a moratorium on farmer’s mortgages. This was of some assistance to the struggling farming community, but it hurt the mortgage holders badly.
“That piece of legislation cost The Colonel around three million pounds in real money of that era,” says Tim Nichols.
Tim Nichols is a charming, gregarious man, casual and warm. His wife Wendy is equally as charming, elegant and of North Canterbury farming stock. From neither is there the slightest hint of “landed gentry”.
Tim’s had an adventurous life. Born into the ways of the “estate,” he opted for a life that took him to several parts of the world, including Australia and New Guinea before returning home to the “estate” where Tim is essentially the manager of the home — Kuriheka Estate is controlled by trustees.
There’s obviously a deep heritage here and it all stems from the influence of “The Colonel” . He died in 1954 at the grand old age of 95, but he left a legacy that’s almost unbelievable.
The Colonel was a collector of anything and everything military — “he was a bower bird,” says Tim in reference to the bird that, magpie-like, collects things.
I’ve visited castles in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden, but nothing I’ve seen there, compares with Kuriheka.
The home is a rambling affair, reflecting the various stages at which it was built, and then added to. The walls, and the ceilings in some cases, are covered with the most amazing collections — spears, shields, swords, fi****ms, tapestries — here is a sampler done by Mary Queen of Scots, carefully framed, here is a flag — a Union Jack — and a drum from the Seige of Mafeking.
Here are glass cabinets of rare and ancient fire¬arms.
Tim opens cupboards and drawers and more rare stuff literally falls out.
But it wasn’t just militaria that the Colonel collected. “He threw nothing out,” says Tim showing us a packet of small, square nails that date back well into the 19th century.
Tim, opens some drawers in a cabinet in the dining room and pulls out sheafs of documents and leather bound books — these are the copper-plate, hand-written records of the daily affairs of Dalgety, Nichols & Company Limited.
And it’s all collected together in a living environment. It’s 100% original, with very little that’s modern that doesn’t need to be.
On one highly polished architrave behind the door into the dining room are pencilled marks — where the Colonel had marked the height of his children at various birthdays. That began a family tradition that Tim and Wendy continued with their own children.
The existence of the collection at Kuriheka has been whispered of in antique circles for years. The family has never made a secret of it, but, until recently, has never been public about it either.
The grounds, with their outbuildings, guns and war memorial have always been accessible by the public — but its location has meant that you’ve only got to know of the place by word of mouth, or stumbled on it.
Value of the house and the collection? Who knows? But it will be several million I’d guess.
Tim’s been forced to rethink things in recent years. Insurance and legal requirements over the fi****ms have meant a stringent approach to security.
After almost a century of “leaving the doors unlocked”, there is now a security system, and the largest displays of fi****ms are now in an area protected by steel roller-doors.
This is one of the most amazing places I have ever visited — either in New Zealand, or abroad. And the visit is made even more rewarding by the charm and easy style of the hosts.
Tim and Wendy may have spent many years “away from the farm’, but their knowledge of the collection and family history is encyclopaedic.
It was too early to head back to our digs at the Brydone, so I turned the nose of the Mazda 6 wagon south out of Maheno to The Mill House at Waianakarua — Wainak to the locals. This was the old Phoenix flour mill that lay empty for decades, the paint and signwriting peeling on the outside walls until two Dunedin men, who’d had careers in the Dunedin theatrical world, Bill Menlove and Bernard Esquilant, had a vision of creating a restaurant and hotel.
Today, the pair live in semi-retirement in Oamaru while the Mill House has had other owners and been extended. But it’s still a lovely complex set in garden grounds and alongside a gentle river.
I wanted to take a photograph of the bridge on
SH 1 over this river right next to the Mill House. It’s a narrow, hump-backed bridge with sides and entirely constructed of Oamaru stone. It’s the oldest bridge on a state highway anywhere in New Zealand and obviously has major historical importance. It’s an icon.
But it’s also too narrow for today’s traffic demands and the sides of the bridge are heavily scarred in mute witness to the large number of accidents that occur on it. Sadly, many are fatal.
After years of negotiating, a compromise between locals and Transit NZ over improving the bridge has been made. The sides will be removed and stored while the bridge is widened, and the hump eased. The sides will then be put back on.
The Mill House had the “closed” sign out when we arrived. The current owner appeared as we walked around the grounds to take our photograph of the bridge from underneath. He’s Allan McQueen who I knew as a Police officer when I was News Editor at Radio 4X0 in Dunedin back in the early 1980s. Retired from the Police, he and his wife bought motels in Wanaka and sold them to buy the Mill House.
“The place had been closed and empty for the best part of a year, so it’s been hard work, cleaning the place up and getting it established again. But it’s working. We had a big wedding in last night and didn’t get to bed until almost daylight, so decided to close today.”
If you are in the area, stay at the Mill House, and try for a room in the main building for preference.
We headed back into Oamaru and took our bags to our rooms in the Brydone, which turned out to be quite a feat.
The Brydone Hotel itself is more than a hundred years old, but most of the accommodation is out the back, in a major modern extension wing and getting there from the reception area is quite a walk. The rooms were clean, comfortable and well equipped in a neutral, coach-tour kind of way.
The old part of the hotel has much more grace, character and charm. It’s still owned by the Licensing Trust, but is operated as part of the Quality Hotels chain.
It had been a long day. Up in Auckland at 6.00am, first flight to Christchurch, drive down from Christchurch and the visit to Kuriheka and Waianak. Time for the lads to be fed and watered.
What to do in Oamaru on a Sunday night? There was always the lure of the Lagonda tearooms ...
Surprisingly for cynical Aucklanders, there was plenty to do.
Our first call was at the old original post office which is now a bar and restaurant called, aptly enough, The Last Post. We mooched and chatted with the staff and the locals, then headed along to an Irish Pub in a former bank right opposite the Brydone.
The atmosphere here made it, perhaps, the best Irish Pub we’ve been into anywhere. Not surprisingly, the owners are Irish.
Next morning, we had breakfast in the Brydone’s dining room. There were few other breakfasters that Monday morning; we three, a young couple and a blonde-haired woman wearing a red dress.
Our first call was the Visitor’s Information Centre. But our arrival coincided with the arrival of a number of motels, restaurant and tour operators from around the North Otago District who’d been invited along for a familiarisation tour of Oamaru’s tourist attractions.
Gavin Shaw and I left John Register to pound the pavements, knocking on doors and otherwise talking to locals, and went off to the office of Waitaki Tourism — part of an umbrella organisation, the Waitaki Development Board, set up by the Waitaki District Council to coordinate, and promote, tourism, industry and growth in the region.
We explained to the young lady behind the counter we were down from Auckland to research and write a feature on North Otago and would like to “speak to someone” about what the region was doing.
At first we were directed back to the Visitor’s Information Centre — but we explained we wanted more than brochures — we would like to speak to people like the Mayor and other decision makers.
An office door opened and out walked the blonde haired woman in the red dress who’d been in the Brydone dining room that morning. She smiled at the young woman behind the reception desk and said — “It’s okay, I had breakfast with these gentlemen this morning.”
She’s Susan Owen who’s the general manager of the Waitaki Development Board and over the next two days we heard nothing but praise for her and the mayor. It seems that the future of the area is in good, capable and popular hands.
Susan Owen was busy that morning, but we arranged a meeting for 10.00am the next day.
I left Gavin Shaw to also pound the pavement with John Register, while I headed out for some countryside exploration. This brings us back to where the story started — a drive down the coast to Kakanui, back onto SH 1 and my meeting with the Highway Patrol at Herbert.
For many years, it was the Four Square store with the single word “Herbert”, like the sign on a railway station, that identified this township scattered along both sides of SH1. The Herbert Four Square store was an established and permanent part of the countryside. Think SH1 south of Oamaru and you thought of the Herbert Four Square store.
But time caught up with the store and I was aware, from an earlier drive down SH1 that it had closed two or three years ago.
On this morning though the store was open again, and standing outside, in the brilliant sunshine was a large, wooden, Moa sculpture. I had to stop and ask. My nosiness again.
The shop is now part gallery, part local museum, part furniture restoration, part — well — part just about everything historic, artistic and alternative. It’s owned and operated by a young couple — Matt King and Elizabeth Burton and, like the Highway Patrol Officers I’d had the conversation with five minutes earlier, they too had come down from Auckland.
Unlike the officer who was transferred to the area from Auckland, Matt and Elizabeth made a lifestyle choice.
Matt had a North Otago connection — he comes from good Otago stock. He had a direct line to the Graves family, one of the earliest North Otago pioneer families. “I used to come down from Auckland and stay with my grandparents here, so I knew the area well. When I heard that the Four Square Store was closed and the building was for sale I said to Elizabeth, let’s buy it and shift south. So here we are.”
“We’d run a furniture restoration business in Mount Albert and I’ve continued that from here. But I’ve also been able to do more sculptures and art. I thought it was going to be a quiet life, but we’ve got involved with the community and things like the historic society.”
“It’s great here. The people are nice, the country¬side is fascinating.”
My mobile phone rings. It’s Gavin Shaw; he’s set up a meeting with the mayor for 4.00pm that day. It rings again. Its John Register this time, he’s set up a meeting with Bob Berry of Whitestone Cheese for 1.30pm — and I’ve still got a lot of territory to cover.
Back in the Mazda 6, I continue north towards Oamaru and then head inland just past the township of Alma — out towards small places like Enfield and Tokarahi — and other places that I’ve never been to before. It’s a fascinating drive through spectacular limestone country — vast outcrops frame the skyline — with unusual names like Elephant Rocks.
I do a great loop — out to Tokarahi and back again. In Ngapara there is an historic flour mill built of Oamaru stone — what else? — that’s still operating. I stop at the Parkside Quarry to take a look at the limestone operation. The lime for crushing and spreading on paddocks is mined “over the hill” from what I’ve come to see — the quarrying of limestone for building.
This is an open-cast operation. The topsoil is stripped back to expose the bed of limestone. It’s then levelled to provide a large, absolutely flat surface and then large, 2 tonne blocks are cut out using a very large version of your home handyman skill saw. In days of yore, this was all done manually, using large, coarse-toothed hand saws. Today, the large power cutting saw is largely computer controlled and it can be programmed, and left to get on with the job pretty much by itself.
The large blocks are then taken to the nearby “factory” where they are cut into smaller blocks, slabs, or bricks, palleted up and sent to building sites all over the country.
What is limestone? It’s a soft white stone that was formed millions of years ago on the seafloor by shell deposits.
Although limestone is found in many parts of the country, it’s the creamy colour of Oamaru stone that’s made it so popular as a decorative building material. Of course, the quantity, its accessibility and the ease with which it can be used, made it the building material of choice in the early days of Oamaru. It can be cut with a hand-saw and you can even drive nails into it.
Whitestone is a word that you hear a lot of around Oamaru. Several years back the city was given the sobriquet “Whitestone City” — but it never really caught on. But now that the region has got a plan and a vision for the future, the brand “Whitestone Waitaki — naturally better” has been established.
I’m a bit mystified during the drive — although I’m tiki-touring all over the place I come across a great number of road signs that are obviously tourist oriented pointing out features of the “Vanished World” — I make a mental note to ask what this is all about.
Back in Oamaru I gang up with Gavin and John again and we go off to meet Bob Berry of Whitestone Cheese — one of the recent North Otago success stories. Bob started his working life as a stock agent, bought one farm, bought another, weathered bad times, enjoyed the good and in 1987 he diversified by creating the cheese company.
“I knew nothing about cheese at all — let alone specialty cheeses and we made some mistakes at the start,” he laughs. “But once we got an experienced cheesemaker on board, things improved dramatically.” So good that the products have won awards — cupboards and shelves full of them.
A new cheesemaker is at Whitestone these days. He’d been there just a week or so when we arrived. He’s Jason Tarrant who’s come to Oamaru from Eltham in Taranaki where he worked for the Ferndale brand — and yes, everyone asks him if he needs patience to be a cheesemaker...
Today Whitestone Cheese is a booming local industry, employing 16 people, and is the second largest specialty cheesemaker in the country and has earned 10% share of the specialty cheese market in New Zealand. The cheeses are available across the country, but with around 50% of production exported to Japan, Australia and the USA.
Then it’s off to see the mayor.
Alan McLay is a first-term mayor. Terms like “dynamic’ and “go-getter” have been applied to him during our two days in town. He’s obviously popular with the townsfolk — and with his staff.
Gavin Shaw and I arrive at the grand Council offices in the imposing former Post Office and say we’ve come to “meet the mayor”. The receptionist is impressed, raises an eyebrow — “come to see the Mayor have you — must be important” — and then phones upstairs — we’re not sure she believes us.
“Yes, he is expecting you. I’ll let you into the inner sanctum.”
AIan McLay’s slim, immaculately dressed in a fashionably styled double-breasted suit. I ask if he’s Oamaru born and bred.
No. He’s lived most of his adult life here, but says he was born in a South Otago town that nobody from Auckland would ever have heard of — Owaka.
I tell him that I know Owaka well. He’s surprised and we spend ten minutes talking about Owaka, and people that we know in common.
Alan McLay’s been a builder, run his own construction company, sold that and became an insurance broker when he had the calling to get involved in local body politics and stood for the mayoralty against eight others, including the incumbent, in the last elections — and won.
Why’d he stand?
“I had no ambition to get involved in politics at any level. But prior to the last local body elections, I was asked to stand by a number of people. This town’s been good to me — and I felt that if I had the chance to give back something, I should do it.”
I explain why we’re here. How I used to think that Oamaru was small, dull and boring — until the Cockburn Tour and my first visit to Kuriheka and, how, since then, Oamaru has intrigued me.
Alan McLay is enthusiastic about the immediate future of Oamaru and the rest of the district.
“The district’s suffered through some terrible droughts in the past forty years or so, that’s brought real hardship to the area. But it’s also made the people incredibly resilient.”
“But times are changing. Pinot Noir grapes are being grown up the Waitaki Valley and they’re showing real promise and there have been significant plantings of cherry trees too (40,000 of them), which are also looking very, very good. We’ve got one of the best climates in New Zealand for cherries — but nobody’s really tried them — until now.”
And who is behind the grapes at Otekaike and Duntroon up the Waitaki Valley? It’s none other than the Otago Trust, headed by Dunedin man, Howard Paterson, who’s one of the most successful, visionary entrepreneurs in New Zealand. Just about anything of significance that happens south of Christchurch these days involves Howard Paterson, one way or the other.
“Oamaru and the Waitaki region have been in decline for some years, but that decline has not only been halted, but it’s been reversed,” says Alan McLay.
“We’ve marketed the region to other parts of the country, and we’ve been successful at that — the local real estate market has never been healthier. And tourism is booming.”
“The Council’s spent a lot of time and money down in the old part of the town and that area’s coming on nicely — but there’s still a lot more to do. I just wish that we had all of the money to get it done at once. But we’ve only got 10,500 ratepayers and need to do things within a budget constrained by our income.”
The council’s just purchased the old railway shunting yards that lie between the Victorian area and the harbour and has released a harbour development concept plan that will link both areas across the former railway shunting yards.
“It’s only a concept at the moment, but it’s something that most of the town agrees that we should work towards.”
The Oamaru port is under-utilised today — there’s a small fleet of fishing boats, and a handful of pleasure craft, but that’s about all.
Many years ago there were newspaper headlines when it was discovered that the Oamaru Harbour Board still had grand ideas about itself long after the heyday of coastal shipping and that there was still actually a harbour master, on a good salary, who really did absolutely nothing.
We spend an hour with Alan McLay and he briefs us on some major developments that will be detailed further when we meet Susan Owen in the morning.
First impressions are lasting impressions — we’re impressed with Allan McLay’s enthusiasm, his easy to talk-to style — and the fact that he’s enthusiastic.
Besides which, it’s impossible not to like a man who’s just bought a red, double-decker “London” bus on the spur of the moment.
Gavin and I leave, meet up with John Register and head off down to the Victorian area to have a beer at the period Criterion Hotel with some of the locals.
It’s been a long, long day and after dinner back at the Brydone, we tumble into our beds.
Susan Owen arrived in Oamaru from southern England via Australia where she was also involved in local body government. But she didn’t like the direction that Australia is heading in and when the Oamaru opportunity presented itself, she accepted.
Susan Owen tells us about Project Aqua and the arrival in town of major Japanese interests in the form of Nikken Foods.
Project Aqua is the revival of a huge, long-standing plan to further develop the Waitaki River for hydro electricity.
The upper reaches of the Waitaki are, of course, already highly developed with a number of high dams. But Project Aqua involves the construction of a 62 km canal that would run parallel to the southern bank of the river and on which would be up to six power stations. There would be no high dams.
It’s a plan which was originally drawn up in the days of government ownership under the NZED, and then Electricorp, but which was shelved in the 1980s when the Clyde dam was completed giving us a temporary surfeit of electricity.
But now it’s back on again and there’s a clear belief in the region that it will go ahead despite the expected, and almost inevitable protests over environmental and Treaty issues.
The one billion dollar project entails diverting somewhere between two thirds and three quarters of the river flow into the canal — and that’s not going to please the passionate salmon and trout anglers, and the local Iwi will also have some issues over this.
There would be obvious, and significant, short to medium term benefits to the area during the construction phases. But the carrot that’s been dangled over the region by developers Meridian Energy is “irrigation!” — Which would have far longer term benefits. Some of North Otago has been irrigated for many, many years and the boost to those areas has been enormous.
What is planned, to go hand in hand with the electricity development, is that Meridian will also deliver sufficient water from the main canal into a smaller canal that would allow gravity irrigation of two main valleys south of the river — areas that are now, mainly brown, parched and have been badly affected by the droughts. Around 39,000ha would get the benefit of irrigation creating around 600 new jobs.
Although the cost of the water to the landowners will be significant — as with all irrigation — the result will be land that is highly productive.
Everyone we speak to in our visit is excited by the benefits that Project Aqua will bring.
“There will be short term benefits during the construction of the hydro-power scheme, but far longer benefits from the irrigation,” said both Alan McLay and Susan Owen.
“There will be some opposition — that’s a given — but we understand the concerns and they will be addressed in an orderly fashion,” says Susan Owen. “Overall, there’s a will, and an expectation, that Project Aqua will go ahead.”
There’s no doubt that there will be protest — something that won’t be entirely new to Oamaru.
Four years ago there was bitter protest in the town when the council went ahead with a plan to build a swimming pool on a recreation reserve in the centre of town. That’s an issue that still angers some locals.
Another major development is the arrival in town of Nikken Foods from Japan.
Nikken have arrived in a grand fashion — purchasing 19ha of land and are developing a state of the art industrial park on the northern outskirts of the town, purchasing several of the town’s historic buildings for preservation and also refurbishing the long-closed and empty Teschmaker’s College to the south.
Oamaru has long been a centre for upmarket Roman Catholic education, with St Kevin’s in the town for boys, and Teschmaker’s, out of town, for the girls. Both colleges had the highest reputations — but the cost of running both institutions was too much and Teschmaker’s was relocated into the St Kevin’s complex a decade ago.
Now Nikken are reopening the collection of imposing buildings as a specialist university.
Nikken is an organisation that’s involved with an alternative approach to many things — they’re environmentally and socially aware — and they identified Oamaru as a region that fitted their profile, and needs.
Nikken will be involved in growing and processing organic foods and encouraging other businesses with similar attitudes.
Fledgling companies wanting to get involved can start in a “kindergarten” area in the industrial park where they’ll be offered lower rents and other assistance to get established.
Project Aqua I can clearly understand. But Nikken Foods seems a bit too New Age for me.
Something I clearly understand though is tourism. It’s an industry that’s always interested me and it seemed to me from the days of the Cockburn Tour, and discovering Kuriheka, that Oamaru and North Otago had huge potential as one of this country’s major tourist destinations — maybe third only to Queenstown and Rotorua.
That’s starting to happen as we found out.
Michael O’Brien is an Aucklander; more correctly, a former Aucklander. He describes himself as a “Victorian book-binder” — hardly a high-demand profession, or occupation you’d think in the year 2002 AD. Michael learned his craft with an apprenticeship at the Auckland Art Gallery, then went overseas.
“I got back and found that the Auckland I had come back to was not the Auckland I had left. It had changed, become too self-serving — too self-centred. I didn’t like the place so I looked around the country and learned what was happening in Oamaru, and moved here.”
What was “happening in Oamaru” was that the council had bought many of the old Victorian buildings and wanted to develop them into a living historic area as a tourist attraction. Michael O’Brien’s thrown himself into the lifestyle with a passion. It’s a bit like one of the television shows where TV cameras follow the daily lives of a family living in the style of years-gone¬by.
Michael O’Brien wears Victorian style clothes as part of his daily routine — tweed jacket and waistcoat, matched by tweed Plus Four trousers, leggings and boots. He’s grown a full beard and wears his hair long. He’s also involved heavily, in the local branch of Alf’s Imperial Army — somehow I wasn’t surprised.
His car is very proper — an immaculate green and cream 1966 Wolsely 6/110. You’d expect nothing less. Michael runs his Victorian book-binding business and, almost next door, his wife runs a second-hand bookshop.
The entire area is like you’ve travelled back in time. The buildings have been gently “restored” and “refurbished” — although both of those words are a bit too energetic for what’s been happening — and continues to happen — down there. As part of establishing the area as a tourist attraction, a collective name’s been given to it — Harbourside.
When the council bought those buildings that were available, many had been empty for several years and most needed new roofs.
While the council still owns most of the buildings in Harbourside, the day-to-day affairs are handled by
the Whitestone Trust, which operates out of the original offices of Lanes Emulsion.
We go in to spend five minutes with Michael O’Brien. We end up, out the back, drinking organic tea in a little corner surrounded by all manner of ephemera. “I won’t give you five minutes — we’ll need at least an hour ....”
Apart from the O’Briens there are also several shops specialising in “collectibles” and second-hand goods.
Rodger Rush is a classic example of what’s happened in Harbourside. Rodger operated a car paint and panel business on the corner leading into Harbourside. Like all buildings in the area it was a classic piece of Victoriana — built of Oamaru limestone.
When he saw what was happening, he closed his panel and paint shop — painted and decorated his building, cleaned his hands and opened a thriving second hand business.
Right next door to Rodger Rush is Omru Blue — but the man who owns and operates this specialist gift shop is not a local. In fact he’s not even a Kiwi. Robert McLean came from Australia to take part in the revitalisation of Harbourside.
Apart from the council, probably the largest single investors in Harbourside are locals. Allan Wills is definitely local — he’s a fifth generation from “up the Waitaki Valley” at Duntroon. He and his partner Carol have shown an enormous commitment to Harbourside — they bought an entire woolstore and then spent more than the purchase price replacing the roof and converting the vast internal spaces into something workable.
Downstairs is a cafe, a gift shop and a car museum. Upstairs is a display area and weekly market for local craft people.
In prime position is the Criterion Hotel — a magnificently recreated Victorian inn. There was a pub here back in the days before prohibition and when it reopened with the creation of Harbourside, it was a sort of “play” pub.
“The pub only opened at weekends — that sort of thing,” says Michael O’Brien. “But then the council decided that what we really needed was to apply for a license and run it as a proper pub.”
So that happened and the new pub was leased out. But there’s been some dissatisfaction at various levels over the way it’s been operated.
“To operate a business here, you’ve got to look on it as more than just a money-making operation,” says Michael O’Brien. “You’ve got to want to enjoy the life¬style aspect of it as well, and become involved. The man who’s leased the pub, started off that way, but now we hardly ever see him.”
The pub is a full pub, with quaint little, period furnished, bedrooms upstairs — the sort of place that I’d like to stay, as a tourist, for the pure experience. But the “No Vacancy” sign is out permanently, even though there are no guests.
On the occasion of our visit, the lease on the pub was about to end and the council was looking for someone who would become more involved in the “Harbourside” concept.
Harbourside is a unique experience in New Zealand and it’s a place that I have included in every drive through Oamaru since that time, many, many years ago of the “Cockburn Tour”.
Over those years I’ve seen the area move from a working environment into an almost derelict collection of buildings and now the creation of this tourist attraction.
I find the “drive” or the walk, from the present “main street”, north of the monument along Thames Highway, a fascinating experience. You move from regular, everyday shops and businesses into an area that has special charm and atmosphere. Then the shops thin out and you move through the older commercial area, past the council offices, past the Last Post, across a bridge that you need to look for, but which is remarkable in its own way. Until the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened, this was the widest bridge (and also one of the shortest) in the Southern Hemisphere.
Then you’re at the end of Thames Highway and turn left down into the pure Victorian quarter and you are confronted by this outstanding collection of buildings. It really is something very, very special.
If you really want to capture the mood — weather permitting — there is a horse and gig ride from outside the Brydone Hotel, down to the Criterion Hotel.
There are some disagreements among Harbourside—ites over the philosophy of the place — Michael O’Brien and his supporters want a pure approach and have put forward a suggestion that the council should apply for World Heritage status for the area — the place is that special. Others want a more commercial approach.
“Yes, there are some differences between people down there,” says Mayor Allan McLay. “But they’re minor and there’s nothing that can’t be worked out:”
There is also an awareness — concern would be too strong a term — of the potential that the “old” part of town has to attract customers away from the established “new” part — generally speaking, that area north of the monument.
But Oamaru is, in part, a Victorian city and each year the entire town celebrates this with the week long Victorian fete over the third week of November.
This is an event that sees many of the townsfolk dressed up, like Michael O’Brien, in Victorian costume. It’s a chance to step back in time, ride in gigs and ride on penny-farthing bicycles. Now there’s another local international industry — building and exporting the strange looking devices.
I‘m surprised that Harbourside isn’t the main reason for the 57% increase in tourists in the past year. But, it seems, I’ve got tunnel vision over Harbourside. The number one tourist attraction is penguins. Everyone tells me about the penguins — Bob Berry at Whitestone Cheese, the mayor Allan McLay, Susan Owen, Michael O’Brien, Allan Wills — everyone.
There is a large blue penguin colony right on the edge of the harbour area — down through Harbourside, turn left, skirt along the edge of the harbour and there they are — droves of the little buggers that waddle back and forth twice a day. Morning they waddle from their nests out to sea for a day’s fishing. At evening they surf ashore, struggle to their feet and waddle off home — under the adoring gaze of tourists. It’s the evening arriving-home-from-work waddle that gets most of the attention — it’s at a civilised hour for human beings.
The penguins are huge business — and going to get bigger. New facilities are being built to cope with an increasing number of people who want to see the penguins.
There is a small, historic train that operates between Harbourside and the penguin colony.
The council is pouring resources into tourism development — Harbourside can only get better and better — the purchase of the railway shunting area, and the concept plan for the harbour re-development are major moves — not quite on the scale of the water¬front development in Auckland, but massive for Allan McLay’s 10,500 ratepayers.
The harbour was “the place” to go in Victorian Oamaru — there was a harbour promenade with ornate street lights. Today, the promenade and the street lights remain — but it’s now a little used area, a bit desolate and run down.
The council’s plan to link town, into Harbourside, into the harbour area and into the penguin colony is visionary and shows a commitment to the future.
But Harbourside and penguins aren’t all that the Waitaki District has going for it in terms of tourist attractions. Starting at the extremities of the district there are the massive and spectacular hydro electricity complexes at Ohau, down through Benmore and on to the original at Waitaki. How many people realise the social impact that the construction of the Waitaki dam had in New Zealand?
These were tough times in the early 1930s — not only was the world in the grip of the Great Depression, but workers were ruthlessly exploited — none more than those involved in the construction of the Waitaki dam. There were deaths and injury.
One of the local schoolteachers, the doctor and the Presbyterian minister were concerned at the working conditions and became involved with the fledgling and largely powerless trade unions on the project.
At nights these three men would sit, talk and plan for a more egalitarian society. These men were Jock Davidson, D.G. McMillan and Arnold Nordmeyer — future Labour government cabinet ministers — and they were the architects of many of the social policies of what was to become the first, and the second, Labour governments of New Zealand.
But, I digress. Back on the tourist trail.
At Omarama you find the spectacular Clay Cliffs — unlike anything else in natural New Zealand. Down the Waitaki Valley are Maori rock paintings and a Fossil Centre at Duntroon — to the south places like Moeraki and the Moeraki boulders. The boulders and the fishing village of Moeraki don’t live together but are several kilometres apart.
The boulders are a national icon and easily accessible, Moeraki village is a sleepy little place for which there were once great plans. It’s situated in a north-facing bay, in the curved arm of a small peninsula and is as pretty as new paint, viewed across the bay.
A spur railwayline was put into Moeraki, off the main trunk line, but it was closed abruptly when the land around the peninsula proved unstable. Like much of the south it’s graywacke. Moeraki remained, largely, asleep.
If you’re interested in commercial history, then the region’s also rich in that. Just south of Oamaru is the highly-regarded and beautifully restored complex from which the first shipment of frozen lamb was sent to England. Further south, just past the spectacular drive along the Kartigi coast, is S**g Point. There’s not a lot here today — a major forestry development, and a collection of cribs and retirement homes, strung out along the side road. But, go to the end of the road and you’ll find where there used to be coal mines that went far out under the southern Pacific Ocean. There are still some above-ground remnants, including air vents, and the natural stone harbour where ships would dock to be loaded with coal. There’s also a sizeable seal colony.
Further south, and maybe just outside the Waitaki District boundary are the restored buildings at
Matakana — (the homestead of whaler, pioneer, land-grabber and entrepreneur Johnny Jones.) Here is probably the world’s only three seater dunny!
But there’s something else that’s about to join the list of things to see and do in the area.
Dinosaurs!
The Vanished World signs that had puzzled me earlier are part of a new heritage trail that starts at Omarama and winds its way through the region to Moeraki. It touches on many already identified places of historic and tourist interest, but also incorporates the huge variety of fossil sites in the area.
The Waitaki area probably has the greatest number of prehistoric fossil sites in New Zealand — and it tends to be a closely guarded secret.
Allan McLay is excited about this. “This is going to be a major attraction — not just on a national scale — but internationally. The scientists have identified many important areas — and some very large fossils. Some are so large, and so important that their location will remain secret. But I’m confident that fossils will join penguins and Harbourside as the reason for people to visit here.”
So, I’ve almost come to the end of our visit to what I used to know as just North Otago. Could I leave Auckland and live in the south again — specifically in Oamaru? Absolutely. But I would want to buy one of the historic 19th century Oamaru stone homes that would fetch more than a million dollars in Auckland. We were sitting having a beer in the Criterion at the end of our second day in the area and Gavin Shaw said — “You know, this place is bloody well incredible. It’s got to be one of New Zealand’s greatest secrets. Why do Aucklanders go to Sydney, when they should be coming here?”
If this article inspires one single person to go to Oamaru, set up a base and spend a week exploring the town and the surrounding countryside, then I’ll be well satisfied.
What’s needed is a specific tour that leaves Auckland and does exactly that. Arrives in Oamaru and spends a week looking at what we managed to skim over in three days.
And that is something that the staff at NZ TODAY is looking at. Gavin and I started by dreaming about chartering the Warbirds’ DC3 and flying to Oamaru airport, there using the mayor’s red double decker bus for transport. But, maybe that’s not possible. We’ll keep you informed.
As I said at the start of this article which is far, far longer than I ever anticipated it would be, the region is on the cusp of huge and spectacular growth. But I get the distinct feeling that that growth won’t be allowed to destroy the unique character of the place one iota.
FOOTNOTE: I left New Zealand four days after the visit to Oamaru and wrote this story over several mornings of a seven day trip to the Scottish Highlands — and beyond. I spent an evening in the small Orkney Island town of Stromness where we ate and supped at the Ferry Inn down on the wharf.
The lady owner chatted with us and said she was off to a “hen’s party” to say farewell to a local woman who was packing her bags and going off to live with her man in New Zealand. “Where abouts in New Zealand?” I asked.
“A place called Oamaru,” she replied. “Know anything about it?”
