Waitaki Wanderer

The Gazehound as she was sketched marooned on the beach at Oamaru 1865 Image Credit: Hocken Collections  While it's been raining most of the week down here in Oamaru I took some time out to look into the wrecks mentioned in the heritage assessment done on the harbour area by Heritage New Zealand. There was a mention of wrecks but not what they were or when. Being highly interested in maritime history I did a bit of investigation and came up with a list dating between 1860 to 1875. There were quite a few vessels wrecked on the beach. The Otago coast isn't a kind place for vessels and I wonder how my Kai Tahu ancestors managed to brave the waters when fishing for kai moana. While the Kaipara Harbour has a far longer history of wrecks dating back to 1839, this town's history is intriguing in itself. Very, very British in its sense of establishment and the colonial attitudes of the day were interesting in themselves. Rivalry with Timaru further north over who should have better...

  While I was down at the waterfront trying to get my head around all the exciting heritage stuff going on just everywhere, I spotted a rusty old crane that instantly had me almost running to it (probably because I LOVE old cranes and machinery) to get a photo. I figured it was probably something used at the Oamaru Harbour Board quarry and silently lamented its rusting state. Rust though has its place but not on that old girl now sadly too dangerous for kids to play on or go near so the council fenced it off a while back. Of course I wanted to know what it was and who made it. So I went digging as all mad historian types do. Image Credit: Culture Waitaki The steam crane (pictured right) was built by Stothert and Pitt Ltd, in Bath, England, in 1926 and ran on rails. It was purchased by the Gisborne Harbour Board for its quarry at Whareongaonga to supply stone for breakwaters on the outer harbour. The 20-ton crane arrived in Gisborne around August of the same year and the engineer re...

  I went for a drive down to the waterfront at Oamaru and discovered one heck of an intact formerly working harbour with all the buildings still there, the railway tracks still embedded in the 1870s breakwater and a steam crane complete with the tracks in place and a wharf, Holmes Wharf, complete with its buildings at the end. Fishing boats were moored to it and I was like a kid in a candy shop, where the heritage overload went. I love coastal heritage anyway, something I really love digging into. The entire man-made harbour is heritage listed which is great. Instead of getting rid of its heritage, Oamaru decided to keep it. Tourists were here and there -- something rarely seen up in Kaipara District. Most going to Northland head for the east coast and not so much to the west. There's earlier history though: Ngai Tahu were there long before European settlement changed everything. It's recorded : Ōamaru was part of the extensive network of kāinga nohoanga (settlements) and kāin...

After leaving Picton and staying in Blenheim for a night, the cats were packed up and it was back in the car heading south and down along the Kaikōura coast towards Christchurch for another night's stay before the final leg to Oamaru. It came up fast that hard striking view of stark hills before the view of a rugged and earthquake affected coastline appeared on the horizon and the tourists with it. There's nothing about this coastline that's less than striking, brooding and a reminder Mother Nature is never predictable. The waves were crashing hard on the rocks uplifted from the last major earthquake and I was driving on roads that had been completely rebuilt after being thrown into the ocean. This coastline was once a place where my tupuna came and hunted moa and when that food supply ran out they were gather moana kai provided by Tangaroa to keep them well-fed.  As the journey continued towards Kaikōura township I spotted a rest area and a lot of interesting plantings of ...

  It began with a conversation about moving south to Otago, then a shakeup jobwise, an urgent placing of my 10.5 acre block in Northland onto the market and then regaining my job with a new company and able to continue working remotely from a new location: Oamaru. The farm sold and the weeks thundered by. The moving truck came and took all my stuff and then it was my turn to head south to an island I had never set foot upon, let alone ever considered heading to at all. It was always 'too cold for me' ... next minute ... I'm sitting at the ferry terminal in Wellington with cats in crates and my youngest one alongside in the passenger seat while we waited to board the Livia for Picton. How the hell did that happen? We boarded the ferry, listened to the rumbling of its massive engines and screws churning up the water and headed up to deck 5 where it was full of people either going on tour or holiday. We met a couple from Hawke's Bay and their family and they were doing the...