Location: Oamaru, North Otago, South Island

Oamura is a heritage town which leans heavily on its Victorian-era architecture to ramp up the quirk factor and attract curious tourists.

Oamaru boasts more than 70 buildings on the Heritage New Zealand register and local businesses have embraced the pervasive Victorian atmosphere. The town has recreated itself as New Zealand’s home of steampunk, a theme joyfully adopted by businesses all across town, from a penny-farthing manufacturer to the wool shop, secondhand bookstore, the velvet-laden Victoria Lounge, and even the local playground, which is modelled on a range of oversized steampunk inventions.

The crowning glory of all this merry reinvention is Steampunk HQ, an artist’s interpretation of how Victorian-era inventors might have built a future powered by steam. The result is a vast art space, gallery and ‘experience’, where you could spend an hour or a whole day marvelling at the clever gadgets, machines, sculptures and vehicles, all created from found objects. So much reuse of rust is impressive.

Highlights of Steampunk HQ are many, but here are a few that stuck with me:

• a model ship used in the movie Master and Commander reimagined as, well, a kind of steampunked ship vehicle
• a piano which plays songs in the key of steampunk
• the totally awesome lightshow of The Portal
• a dark tunnel that leads to next-level steampunkery.

Oamaru also has a colony of little blue penguins that gather daily near an old quarry on the edge of town. I half expect that they wear tiny top hats and Victorian vests.