Things to do in Oamaru – New Zealand
Enjoy marvelous Oamaru : your ideal town to experience the real New Zealand: stunning landscapes, cute blue penguins, Victorian bed and breakfasts and award winning gourmet restaurants.
Things to do in Oamaru New Zealand
Oamaru established itself in New Zealand around 1850 with a sheep run around Oamaru Creek.
Today’s Oamaru is a small well preserved historical city, ideal for strolling and shopping around in shops that bring you back to New Zealand as it was in grandmother’s time.
Oamaru New Zealand candy shop: re-creating the taste of candy from grandmother’s time, yummies!
Admire little blue penguins in Oamaru New Zealand
Make sure to visit Oamaru in the morning or evening, as those are the 2 times of the day the resident Oamaru penguins go and return from the New Zealand east coast to feed.
Little Blue Penguins Oamaru NZ
These blue or little penguins – or korora as the Maori name them – are the smallest penguins in the world and can be found in many places around New Zealand and Southern Australia. However being so small and coming ashore only under the cover of darkness, you won’t see them much driving around in New Zealand. This makes the Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony the easiest place in New Zealand to view a good number of blue penguins as the observation centre is located just a 5 minutes drive from the centre of Oamaru: a must see on any visit to the South Island.
The Oamaru blue penguin colony is within walking distance of the town centre. You can also admire Oamaru’s yellow-eyed penguins: one of the world’s most rare penguin species.
Where to sleep in Oamaru New Zealand
When driving around in New Zealand by car, the best value for money you can get is staying overnight in motels.
For Oamaru we opted to stay in a bed and breakfast in stead of one of the Oamaru motels because we preferred to chat and find out from the local owners as much as possible about the easy pace of life in their city and where to go. Good idea, as they pointed us to the yellow eyed penguin colony.
Oamaru Accommodation : Anne Mieke Guest House
Anne Mieke’s guest house is a non smoking Bed and Breakfast a few minutes walk away from the blue penguin colony, the Historic Precinct, shopping streets, restaurants,Oamaru Information Centre and the Oamaru Gardens.
Where to eat in Oamaru New Zealand
The best Oamaru restaurant stands at the historical building called "Criterion Historical Bar". Food prices were moderate and the chef tries out a fine new cuisine based on local New Zealand produce. The coffee was perfect!
Oamaru New Zealand summarized
Oamaru is a pretty historical town on the east coast of New Zealand between Dunedin and Christchurch. A great place to stop and spend the night if you are touring the east coast by car and want to experience true New Zealand in a nutshell.
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December 2nd, 2010 at 11:56 am
We visited Oamaru in November, we had already seen the little blue penquines at the Ortago Peninsula, where the watching public were kept under control by volunteers,alas this is not the case at Oamaru, there is an observation centre which you pay to go into, but also a small number of little blue’s come ashore a little way down the road from the centre, there is no control here, there is one lady who is trying valiantly to look after them, but the public stand in front of them, blocking their path to their nesting sites, the lady saw one little blue get killed by a passing car, that would have been one family that did not get fed.This is scandalous.