We made the most of our first lie in for a
while at Waitaki Waters and didn’t get up until mid-morning, which was a bit of
a treat!
We’d discovered the night before that there
was a place ‘nearby’ that had open air hot tubs in old oak barrels with views
of the mountains. I don’t need to be told twice when there’s an open air hot
tub on offer so I quickly booked us both in for the 6pm slot in the evening.
Only when we decided to google the location that morning did we discover it was
actually an hour and a half drive away! Ah well.
 |
| Steampunk HQ |
With that in mind we thought we’d keep our
daytime activities pretty simple and decided to head into Oamaru town to have a
wander around. As it was a Sunday we’d also decided we wanted to try and find
somewhere for a roast! (All this cold weather is reminding us of home!)
We made the short drive into town which was
fairly standard – lots of fields, hundreds of sheep and then a few houses here
and there. Then about two minutes outside of town in one of the fields was a
giant robot made out of metal parts, and an enormous rusty column that looked
like it was off a steamship with ‘Oamaru – Steampunk capital of NZ’ emblazoned
on the side. James and I both shot each other a quizzical look – not wanting to
ask the other if they’d seen the same thing for fear that one of us was
hallucinating.
Oamaru is not a particularly big town, and
as we pulled into the centre all became clear, as the first thing you see on
the horizon is the ‘Steampunk Museum’ – housed in an old Victorian-era railway
station and complete with old steam train being ridden by skeletons (we
discovered later you could pay $2 to set off a fireball from the chimney!)
 |
| Crazy Train |
Right next to the museum is Oamaru’s ‘old
quarter’ – an entire street of buildings left as they were in Victorian times,
completely random but made for a very amusing hour of wandering around! The
best part was that the locals took it so seriously, a couple of old boys were
sat outside on the cobbled streets playing a banjo and one guy had the best
white moustache and mutton chop combo I have ever seen – complete with full
Victorian get-up.
We’d heard that there was an amazing
restaurant at the end of the old quarter housed in an old whiskey store that
served a Sunday carvery – words cannot describe our excitement…and then our
disappointment as we turned the corner to discover that they were closed for
renovations!
Determined to get our Sunday roast
somewhere, we stopped by one of the shops and asked one of the locals if he
knew of anywhere good. He briefly dropped the name of a pub that we barely
caught and then proceeded to tell us for at least 15 minutes how fabulous the
local Italian was…we literally could not get away from him without promising to
go there and try the chili prawn salad! |
| Bemused |
We were starting to lose faith as we
clambered back into the wagon and decided to head out of town back to our
campsite, but as we were departing we happened to notice a fairly small pub on
the road out. Excited, we parked up and jumped out to read the menu – we got
even more excited when we saw a blackboard for their roast of the day, and then
I damn near punched James in the beard out of frustration when we realised they
only served food until 2pm and it was 2.30!
 |
| Om nom nom |
With our bellies full we hit the road for
our jaunt up to the hot tubs at Omarama. The drive was fairly spectacular
across lakes and with snow-capped mountains visable in the distance for most of
the way. There was meant to be a good Vineyard on the way that did wine
tastings which we had already earmarked to break the journey up – but sadly
they were closed as we pulled up, due to having no staff!
Fortunately, just around the corner there
were some ancient Maori rock carvings which were part of many heritage sites
around the area. We were the only people in the carpark as we pulled in, and it
was a swift walk there. The paintings themselves were fairly worn after so many
years, but unfortunately over time – and before they had been contained behind
the ugly cage - they had been vandalized quite significantly. Names of people
that had been there dating way back to the 50s and 60s dotted the entire walls,
there were also huge chunks missing from a lot of it where people had taken
souvenirs away with them (some of them are now in Museums around NZ, some just
got destroyed in the process).
 |
| This is how we roll. |
Omarama itself was a pretty small farming
town – the oddest place for a fancy looking outdoor hot tub complex but who are
we to complain?! We were also pleased on arrival to learn that hot tubs were
BYO, and one of the great joys of travelling in a camper is that you always
have everything you own with you! We nipped back and grabbed a fancy bottle of
picnic wine we’d bought a couple of years ago and had been saving.
 |
| Toasty! |
We were led to out hot tub by ‘Lance’, a
very friendly kiwi chap. I think they had about 12 hot tubs but you would never
have known it, each site is surrounded by bush and gravel meaning it feels like
you’re the only people there! Lance showed us how to heat up or cool down our
tub and then informed us that ‘nudie bathing’ was okay, which obviously made me
giggle like a ten-year-old…
After a fair bit of driving and being
battered by the southerly winds we were both rather happy to sit in a hot tub
for an hour and a half sipping wine. After sunset it was also a fantastic spot
for a bit of stargazing as there was obviously nothing around for miles kicking
out a great deal of light, meaning you could see the whole night sky perfectly.
We left all warm and sleepy and then
realised we still had an hour and a half drive back to our campsite! We both
agreed the hot tubs were definitely worth the jaunt though. When we finally got
back we were both too tired to bother cooking anything substantial, but after
our stop off at Barry’s Bay the day before we were both craving a bit of cheese
(nothing new!) and I mentioned to James how much I fancied cheese on toast…we
pondered how we could achieve it for a minute having only the gas hob and
microwave to work with…but then we spotted the toaster, and a bit of ingenious
maneuvering meant our dreams soon became a reality!
 |
| Cheese! |
No comments:
Post a Comment