Oamaru

With a couple of days of predicted rain and cooler temperatures for Christchurch we decided to head south and see if we could find some sunshine. A journey I had not taken for over 25 years, it bought back many memories and was surprisingly unchanged. We stopped for lunch in Oamaru, a place that in the past had only ever been a town we drove though on our way to Dunedin. This time we spotted a steam train and left the main road, we quickly found ourselves in a delightful Victorian town, almost a twilight zone moment as we wandered the streets seeing only people dressed in victorian costume. If is wasn’t for the cars we would have stepped back in time. The blond stone buildings showcased the local stone, as we walked into town the same stone was used for the banks and other imposing facades. Just out of town we saw a sign for a penguin colony but we were too early for a tour so we kept driving towards our next stop along the coast. The train sign is the one used for all the railway crossings, Joe decided that Thomas the Tank Engine must have come from New Zealand.