One of the most beautiful towns in New Zealand, which natural beauty aside doesn’t set the bar particularly high, Oamaru is home to a quite incredible collection of late nineteenth century buildings, demonstrating how wealthy the town once was. As well as wealth from timber and farming, it has distinctive local limestone which features prominently.
Particularly grand are the former Post Office, now council chambers, and the magnificent Opera House, which now seems to be more popular with ballet and Queen tribute bands.
We missed out on Oamaru the last time we visited New Zealand, making way for Dunedin. Wow. This is a wealthy town indeed! Interesting you captured a shot of the bank of new south wales. Isn’t that Australian?
It was wealthy (and had a good supply of local stone) for a while, struggled for decades and now is having a new lease of life thanks to tourism. Yip, Australian bank, the four biggest in NZ all are (Westpac, ANZ, BNZ and ASB).