Day 123 Moeraki Boulders, Oamaru

Our destination today was Oamaru which was only about 100 miles north up the coast.  The drive was a combination of rich farmland on the west side of the highway and the sea coast on the other.  We leisurely cruised towards Oamara taking pictures when necessary (that's Kathy telling me to stop).

The one planned stop was at the Moeraki Boulders.  The geologists seemed to be in agreement of the makeup of the boulders but they are still speculative as to how they were formed.  I'm going with the Alien deposit theory.  "Cocoon".  The rocks are over 45 million years old and as the mud and clay banks are eroded more of the rocks are exposed.

Some other sights on the beach.

We arrived in Oamaru early enough to take in the I Site for some information on the area and to have lunch. Oamaru came to life in the 1850's with the arrival of the first settlers.  The town grew as a service centre for the agricultural/pastoral hinterland and rapidly became a major port.  Commercial fishing, the development of pastoralism and the associated frozen meat industry having it origins in New Zealand saw Oamaru flourish.

It was at this time the main street was developed along with all the grand buildings in the downtown area.  The main street which is 4 lanes wide with a median was made in the era when oxen driven teams brought the goods into the city.  They had to have room to uturn the 8 team oxen and wagon around.  Most of the building structures built in that era still exist and a lot of them have been refurbished and used for other business.



Main Street of Oamaru



Originally Bank of Otago Built in 1871



The Oamaru Opera House opened in 1907



Originally the Oamaru Athenaeum built in 1882



The Second Post Office Built in 1883



Original Post Office built in 1864



There was another section just off the main strip that was the dock area and the buildings are original and not much has been done to them.



The Union Bank of Australia built in 1878



When we reached the end of the street we were at the harbor so we took a couple of pictures before trying to find a campsite to site up.

We got to the campsite, got checked in, had supper and then got ready to go back out.  We were going to the Blue Penguin colony to watch the little birds return from the sea.  They start coming in just before dark which was around 9:30PM.  They were fun to watch.  They are solitary hunters during the day but meet up and come into shore in a group.  This is called a raft and we could see them gathering from our enclosure.  There could be anywhere from 5 to 20 in a raft.  Once they reached shore they had to climb up the bank which was quite steep before heading to the bushes to feed their young.  They really do waddle. The only unfortunate part of the evening is that camera's were not allowed.  In total we watched about 125 come in.  It was a fun night.