Waiareka Saleyards

A New Zealand place that's obscure and iconic in equal measure, the Waiareka Saleyards represent everything that changes and everything that stays the same in New Zealand farming. Serving the Waitaki Valley, the saleyards have, for over 100 years, seen livestock driven in, change hands, and be driven out again - for many, on the short journey to Pukeuri freezing works.
Though some of the Waitaki country has converted to dairy and weather conditions have made times tougher for Waitaki farmers, regular stock auctions continue here, complete with the famous banter between farmer and agent, and a North Otago morning tea.
There are numerous records of community spirit coming to the fore at Waiareka, with farmers donating their stock for sale in an established rural gesture supporting neighbours who have suffered misfortune. On the flipside, as recently as 2015, ewes were reported missing from the Waiareka Saleyards, the age old criminal pastime of rustling, still alive in modern Oamaru.

Janet Frame's autobiography mentions the Waiareka Saleyards (Chapter 12, Willowglen Summer):
"It was a paradisal summer. I had my place to sit, on the fallen birch log by the creek, where I could watch the pukeko, the ducks and the eels, and look through the sheltering willows to the paddock where the sheep and cattle owned by the stock and station agent were held each week before being driven up the road to the**Waiareka saleyards to be trucked out to the Pukeuri Freezing works, which I knew to be the Abattoir, though for many years I confined the word to a kind of porch of consciousness where words linger and come and go, without an investigation of their meaning or an invitation to that lightening room of realisation. Sometimes, futilely, I was able to rescue a sheep from the swamp, and for this service, the stock and station agent, a tall man with a square face and horn rimmed glasses, and an appearance that I might have associated with the player of a cello or piano, paid me a fee of five pounds."

The disused rail line from Oamaru to Weston named the Waiareka Industrial Line, is now a walking/cycling track of 3.5km starting on Saleyards Lane near Waiareka. Saleyards Road has become a new residential subdivision.