Time and tide

 

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 kāinga mahinga kai (food-gathering places) located along Te Tai-o-Ārai-te-uru (the Otago coastline). During the 1879 Smith-Nairn Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Ngāi Tahu land claims, Rāwiri Te Māmaru and other Ngāi Tahu kaumātua recorded Ōamaru as a kāinga nohoanga, pā tūturu, and a kāinga mahinga kai where tuna (eels), inaka (whitebait) and kōareare (edible root or rhizome of raupō/bulrush) were gathered. 

Sketches of Oamaru and Mantell's camp at the Kakaunui River which shows a tent amongst flax bushes on the coast at the mouth of the Kakaunui River. After departing Te Puna-a-Maru on the southern bank of the Waitaki River, Mantell and his travelling party arrived at Kakaunui on 26 October 1848. 

The image above shows an early sketch of Oamaru long before the breakwater was put in to improve safety for shipping. Outside of that the coastline is lashed by strong tides and waves. We get to the nuts and bolts later in the 1860s when ships were being lost and a lot of noise was being made about a breakwater being needed for the fledgling township mapped out in 1858.

Holmes Wharf Oamaru Harbour

The harbour was closed in 1974, I'm not going into long detail about the initial formation of the harbour but pre-1871, when the breakwater was finally underway, my research found a lot of arguments for and against. They're interesting in themselves and were the precursor to what came later on. A complete, intact harbour heralding from the Victorian and Edwardian eras. That's great in itself because there are no other examples nationwide showing how ports of those eras were constructed or what infrastructure for transporting goods to the wharves constructed within the breakwaters. Outside of the calm water artificial harbour the seas lash the nearby beach of black sand.

I don't know this area at all but it's full of interesting things to explore and look into. It's always good to go into more detail about how things evolved where coastal infrastructure goes and that's my forte. I love other history as well. Got Lisa to blame for that one! She runs the Timespanner blog covering all kinds of history. Check it out. I'm still suffering from travel fatigue after all that driving down here to this township. I know I'm going to enjoy it here. A new chapter and I'm feeling so much better after leaving the stress of the farm behind and the mortgage with it! More to come as I gather my brain cells back together and share some more.