Sunshine in Oamaru

We had a lovely day wandering around Oamaru, up and down hills, admiring the townscape.  The period houses look lovely from the outside, but we rather suspect a lot of work would be required on the inside.  There are also a lot of new houses being built, but they all tend to look the same and are rather boring bungalows. We popped into the Information Centre and had a chat and a laugh with a couple of lovely ladies there.  Oamaru is a very friendly place and people smile and often say hello to us before we have a chance to say hello to them, quite a different attitude to what we mostly experience in Auckland.  One of the major things we’ve noticed is the lack of traffic compared to Auckland.  It’s so quiet, which is  rather nice.

We were meant to go to dinner at a restaurant called 1861 at Casa Nova House.  The locals pronounce it Cassanova.  However, I had an upset tummy most of the day so we moved the booking to tomorrow.  Hopefully my tummy will settle down overnight.

I am still way behind responding to comments and dipping into journals.  There’s just been no spare time, so I will catch up when I can.

The first photo in the blip is in the ceiling of the dining room/bar in the hotel.  In olden days I t used to be in the front window, so people sitting inside couldn’t be seen from the outside.  The second photo is a utility box I spotted as we walked around.  The third photo is SteamPunk-style and is in the Victorian Quarter.  The last photo is of St Patrick’s Basilica, a rather splendid building. In earlier days, apparently, the Anglicans were given the best parts of the town on which to build and the Catholics were given the rest - something that seems to have happened a lot in New Zealand.