Waitaki Wanderer

  There's all kinds of heritage connected with European settlement history in Otago, which tells the story of how and entire region and then some became part of the food basket for the rest of the country. It starts with agriculture of course and the clearing of entire tracts of native vegetation with it. I've read elsewhere there's 'no Māori history' for Oamaru. I fail to see how, since my tupuna (ancestors) named the area and that in itself is history also called whakapapa.  Back to this huge water wheel we took a look at recently. Its name is Minnie and it was installed in 1878 for the Phoenix flour mill to replace a smaller wheel to increase production output. It's listed with Heritage New Zealand as a Category 2 Historic Place Reg: 2313 . The Heritage New Zealand summary notes: 'The first industry on this site was John Hunt’s flax mill. The mill was powered by a 28 foot [8.5 metres] overshot water wheel. Flax milling was an important industry in the 186...

  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...