The Steampunk Capital of the World!

Sunday 9 February

From the castle to Oamaru and an afternoon of steam punkery!

It was a glorious morning at the castle with blue skies and sunshine wall to wall, however by the time we had packed up it was clouding over. The drive down SH1 along the east coast was pretty wild & windy, with the SouthEasterly buffeting us from the front and the side, so we took it easy, stopped at Nosh Cafe for a coffee and a delicious ginger crunch along the way and arrived at Oamaru, Steampunk Capital of the World by lunchtime.

Oamaru has a very Victorian through to Art Deco vibe - even on the main street, let alone the Victorian quarter - and has many historic buildings. It is used as a backdrop for many movies and TV series including the new "East of Eden" production starring Florence Pugh (spoiler alert - we did not spot any stars). We had lunch at the Star & Garter, oldest restaurant in town and it was very pleasant but felt a little dated in style - I almost expected to find Vienetta on the dessert menu!

Heading down the street, we paid our $15 each to visit the Steampunk HQ and spent a brilliant couple of hours investigating the imagineering of Victorian retro fantastical creators with a side helping of alien gothic aesthetic!

The HQ was in a large square building, with a rusty rocket train, a dirigible and assorted other steampunk machines outside and was guarded by an eclectic collection of scary beasties with a Gothic, alien and piratical vibe.

Once inside there were heaps of fabulous installations - many of which were interactive. Some were spooky and sad - like the Lonely Emperor who created his children in a machine and the Guardian Of Astrea who was captured in a dungeon beneath our feet - for his safety and ours. Others were quirky and anachronistic - like the minotaur creature on a laptop!

We had fun playing with the interactive stuff like the Steampunk dentist, the pipe organ which played recorded sci-fi sounds and sound bites on the keys, and the Portal which was an infinity of mirrors and coloured lights and skulls (a guy came in with a dog who was really confused and a more than a little worried by the display!).

There was a room of machines and monsters - including a Weta Workshop model of a ship which was used in Master & Commander which has been incorporated into an installation and a runaway train which I was amused to see through the cracked windows was powered by cables & plugs approved by Jim's Test & Tag!!!

In the train you could visit the White Room which was an 8 seat cinema showing a cool B&W movie on repeat.

So much fun… especially when you could pay an extra $5 and dress up in a variety of costumes too. Haven’t had so much dress-up fun since the Jane Austen museum in Bath about ten years ago!

We left in our own boring old outfits and visited a gallery in an old Bank Building - and I had fun in the Warm & Fuzzies room which celebrated NZ wool, by doing my first row of knitting in over a decade!

We pressed on from Oamaru to Hampden Beach for the night - a very grey & drizzly night it was too! I took a walk in the rain in my poncho as my Fitbit steps were low - and met the gorgeous Laurie the 3 month old Welsh Corgi. We did a bit of blogging and had dinner in Banjo then had another wee stroll on the beach as the rain had passed for a while.