Woo-hoo Timaru
Or, why you shouldn’t just pass through on the way to Dunedin, Christchurch, or Oamaru
ALMOST exactly halfway between Christchurch and Dunedin, Timaru is a town that is perhaps more often passed through than enjoyed.
If people have to choose between a stop in Timaru and a stop in Oamaru, they will probably choose Oamaru, because it is more touristy these days.
But to just keep passing through Timaru is a mistake, and in this article, I will add some more reasons why.
The Hectors’ Coastal Track and the Otipua Wetland
Last week, I mentioned the Hectors’ Coastal Track, along the Timaru waterfront, which joins up with the trail to the Jacks Point Lighthouse. This is a great trail on which to go for a long ramble, all the more because it goes past Caroline Bay (of which more below).
Toward the southern end of the Hectors’ Coastal Track, on Saltwater Creek, there is the Otipua Wetland, sixty to seventy hectares or a bit less than two hundred acres of marshy habitat that has been under restoration, by an army of volunteers, for more than twenty years.
Caroline Bay and the Port
In the town area, Timaru is probably best known for its Riviera-like Caroline Bay, which includes the cafes and restaurants on the Bay Hill. The mountains behind the town, snow-capped in winter, can be seen clearly from the Bay Hill as well.
But Timaru is also a working port with a gritty industrial architecture. It’s also no exception to the stone-built and old-fashioned look of New Zealand’s South Island cities, as compared to those of the North where wooden construction and more modern buildings are the norm.
A Stately Skyline
In keeping with the town’s old-fashioned qualities, church spires and landmark public buildings tend to be the tallest features on the skyline. Here’s a photo of the town hall, snapped from inside a car at dusk.
The twin towers of the Roman Catholic Basilica are among the most prominent landmarks.
You can see the Basilica in the background of the next photo, which is of the former Bank Street Methodist Church, a listed historic building that has been used as a funeral chapel since 1992. The spire is very simple but the weathered green copper really stands out.
The tower of St Mary’s Anglican is at the opposite end of the ornateness scale. It wouldn’t look out of place in Cambridge (UK).
Another striking spire is that of the Chalmers (Presbyterian) Church, restored at the beginning of the 21st century. The Chalmers spire is covered in zinc tiles that gleams blindingly in the sun. The Chalmers Church also has elaborate stained-glass windows (unusual for a Presbyterian church, apparently). You can see St Mary’s behind the Chalmers Church in the next photo, and the town hall behind St Mary’s.
Here’s a view down one of the main streets, showing the former Bank Street Methodist Church, the Chalmers Church, and St Mary’s, all in one glance. This is very much the way our towns used to look, before the blight of tall office buildings caught on.
A trip to the library, and why there are so many hotels
A bit more modern is the Timaru Library at 56 Sophia Street, located in a building which was designed by the notable modern architects Warren and Mahoney, of Christchurch, and opened in 1979. It has a couple of large tourist information panels in front.
Here’s a view from the same spot, looking in the other direction. Along with the iSite on the waterfront, which I talked about in last week’s post, this is a good place to get directions.
Here’s another interesting building I came across during some festivities a few years ago, the Dominion Hotel, now a backpacker hostel.
‘Hotel’ is a New Zealand euphemism for a liquor establishment dating back to the days when the clamour for Prohibition was strong, a clamour mixed in with prejudice against the allegedly hard-drinking Catholic Irish.
Things didn’t go quite as far as in the USA, but even so, from World War One until 1967, New Zealand’s public bars had to close at 6 pm, which didn’t leave much time for drinking if you got off work at 5 (that was, of course, the idea).
On the other hand, hotel guests were allowed to go on imbibing till late in the hotel’s private bar, along with anyone else who might be mistaken for a hotel guest.
Many bars therefore added a storey or two and became hotels. These new hotels also gained ultra-respectable names with strong connotations of loyalty to the British Empire such as the Dominion (of course), the Royal George, the Naval and Family, the Edinburgh Castle, and so on. These tended to replace any name they might have previously had, such as Paddy’s Bar.
The Parks of Timaru
Like most New Zealand towns, Timaru has a lot of parks. The great parkland at Caroline Bay is the most visible, but other famous parks include Centennial Park, on the western outskirts of the town.
And the Timaru Botanic Gardens, which lie in a dell with a lake at the bottom.
The Botanic Gardens contain yet another statue of Robert Burns, to go with the one in Auckland and the one in Dunedin, not to mention the one in Hokitika. Burns was, clearly, a rock star to the nation’s early colonists.
All this can be seen in a town that still has a population of only just under fifty thousand. The attractiveness, and community spirit, of these smaller towns and cities is a real reproach to Auckland, pop. 1.7 million. In principle, Auckland ought to be 34 times as amazing as Timaru. But of course, it is not.
Ideally, you should spend at least a day and a night in the town, which has an affordable and fairly central Top 10 Holiday Park, among other places to stay.
Finally, for more tourist information, readers should consult WuHoo Timaru, wuhootimaru.co.nz: the name of which inspired the title of this post!
