Clockwise from top left: Whitestone Cheese Sampler, Steampunk HQ, Kat on a Penny Farthing, Garden Gate, Kyle whispering into Humpty’s ear, Big Tree in the park

Oamaru is a cool Victorian town, which has rebranded itself as The Steampunk Capital of the World. We spent a fantastic two days here. We wandered around in the historic district, walking down streets full of old Victorian architecture and businesses, complete with residents dressed in period clothing. We tried out a Penny Farthing. We visited Steampunk HQ, a very cool museum devoted to steampunk.

Oamaru is also the home of Whitestone Cheese, a local cheese factory that makes world class cheese from dairy found right here in the Otago. Their cheeses have won awards throughout the world, and are actually the favorite cheese of the cast and crew of Scrubs. We LOVE cheese and spent a wonderful morning learning about the cheese-making process and sampling some of their more notable cheeses. We also purchased a few to enjoy during the Christmas holidays.

Our holiday park was right next to the park and gardens, and we had so much fun exploring them. From the wooden fort, to a trickster Humpty Dumpty, to beautiful flowers and scupltures, it was easy to see why this place is one of New Zealand’s Gardens of Significance.