Oamaru Port Heritage Trail

**First piers of the protein bridge **

Lacking a safe, natural harbour, Oamaru for 15 years from the early 1860s was one of the colony’s most notorious shipwreck sites. But still the ships kept coming so, in time, the harbour board constructed a safe harbour, now New Zealand’s only authentic Victorian/Edwardian deep-sea port. On it rested the prosperity that created the whitestone buildings that still dominate the town. There is much to see, even though its only visitors are now fishing vessels and recreational craft. Overlooking the port is the former New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Company warehouse.

The basic port layout dates from 1872–84. The main wharf, Holmes Wharf, began life in 1880 as the North Mole, a long, slender finger of rock that protected the wharves from northerly surges. At the beginning of last century as ships outgrew Sumpter Wharf, Oamaru Harbour Board secretary/treasurer/engineer and part-time architect, Thomas Forrester designed a bigger wharf to run west-east along the mole. It was his last and biggest job in Oamaru. Named after the chairman of the day, Holmes Wharf opened in 1907 and served ships of up to 10,000 tons. The wharf was modified slightly in the 1960s and last used by cargo vessels in 1974. The south side of the port is the more historic. Walk seawards along the old stone sea wall from the Esplanade to Sumpter Wharf, now visibly decaying. It was a different story in 1884. Then the elegantly curving timber wharf, graced by white-painted handrails, welcomed the biggest ocean-going freighters running between New Zealand and Britain. From here the sailing ship Dunedin, carrier of New Zealand’s first shipment of frozen meat, sailed into oblivion in 1890. Big British tramp steamers loaded grain to feed the army’s horses during the Boer War. The little jetties are recent but above them you will see a relic of Oamaru’s notorious shipwreck days, a mast from the Robert and Betsy, wrecked in 1862.

Our next wharf, Normanby Wharf, a wide concrete structure with water frontage on three sides, was completed in 1878. Running off the eastward side of it you will see the Cross Wharf (1879), Scott’s Own Sea Scouts’ base for many years. The Scouts honour Antarctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott. In the early hours of 10 February 1913 the Terra Nova landed a boat to telegraph the world news of Scott’s death in Antarctica. Across the road you can see the historic former Oamaru Harbour Board quarry, blasted from Cape Wanbrow over a period of 100 years. The jaunty cluster of red corrugated iron workshops (now known as ‘The Red Sheds’) were built for the board and have now found new uses with artists and the steam railway enthusiasts.

Finally, we reach the breakwater. It has two parts. The short concrete wharf near the beach is Macandrew Wharf (1875), named after wily Otago Superintendent James Macandrew. It has silted up but in the 1870s the Dunedin-Oamaru passenger steamer fought sailing vessels for space alongside it! The breakwater (1872–84) was built in stages by Walkem and Peyman and Miller & Smillie. Even before it was completed, the 564-metre long concrete structure had transformed the port’s once-atrocious safety record, although it almost sank the contractor building it. Nevertheless, the storm-tossed breakwater has always given the authorities headaches. The landward end was raised between the wars and again in the 1990s and patched in 2002. The rocky spur halfway along is the shrinking remnant of the Ramsay Extension, built during the Depression to provide a sheltered shipping channel out to deeper water. Work stopped at 220 metres in 1944 when the board ran out of funds. The weak quarry rock has been crumbling away ever since.

© 2002 Original text – Gavin McLean.

Further reading: Gavin McLean, Oamaru Harbour, Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, 1982.