Oamaru, New Zealand – Tuesday 25 March 2025
Steampunk HQ. I have previously, and erroneously, referred to it as the Steampunk Museum, which it clearly isn’t. It’s an art installation and gallery and it’s mad and fantastic, and we loved it.
Oamaru is a small town about three quarters of the way down the east cost of New Zealand’s south island. It’s probably most famous for its colony of blue penguins, which Eleanor and I planned to visit when we were in New Zealand in 2022 and down this way for my nephew’s wedding. Sadly, we couldn’t because of Covid; and we didn’t get to the wedding either.
It’s a rural and local administrative centre and the largest town in the immediate area. It has a lovely ‘old’ (by New Zealand standards) Victorian heart, with some excellent examples of the local stone buildings remaining, a number of which are sadly semi-derelict. The town needs investment, like so many other rural places. Hopefully tourism will fill some of the void.
Steampunk HQ is part of that recovery. It opened in 2011 and is a popular tourist destination. There are numerous installations, some interactive, and some audio visual, inside, but the best part was the amazing collection of original imagined future vehicles. It was all very ‘Mad Max’ and totally bonkersly wonderful. I took a few photos and below are some of them.
Australia next.
Where is Phil now? 
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