Oamaru, home of … steampunk?

Ask pretty much any New Zealander what they know about Oamaru and the answer will probably be … not much. They might be able to tell you that this South Island town has a type of local white limestone named after it, and if they’ve been there they’d know that the main streets are full of grand old buildings made from that stone. If they’re a literary type they’d possibly point out that famous New Zealand author Janet Frame grew up in Oamaru, although it’s more likely they’d know that Richie McCaw, the All Black captain, was born there.

Chances are, though, that much of the population couldn’t even point it out on a map. It’s just a quiet North Otago town that visitors pass through on their way to somewhere else. I grew up only a couple of hours away, and yet I don’t remember ever spending more than an afternoon there in the last thirty years.

Sleepy. Rural. Conservative. It’s certainly not the kind of place that you’d expect to find a steampunk museum, and yet that was the entire reason we’d gone there at all.

For those not in the know, ‘steampunk‘ is a term used to describe a particular science-fiction genre that typically takes the clothing and steam-powered world of Victorian England and propels it into a fantasy or post-apocalyptic world. Bizarre machinery is the norm – all hissing steam and giant turning cogs – in a dark, gothic setting. Airships and analogue computers, strange weapons and skeletons … you get the gist.

After a quick chat with some of the people behind this rather unusual venture, we headed through the heavy entrance door and into the darkness beyond. It closed with an ominous clang behind us, leaving us alone with only erratically-flickering bulbs to guide us.

A skeleton sat behind the wheel of a large, tractor-like vehicle. Copper pipes ran into large tanks, occasional jets of steam hinting at an unknown purpose. A metal motorbike with spoked wheels sat beside the door, illuminated in a blinding shard of light whenever it opened, while a small boat hung suspended from the ceiling beside an old dentist’s chair.

As someone with only a passing acquaintance with steampunk, I probably missed most of the subtleties – but as a guy, it was hard not to love the place anyway. What’s not to like about being surrounded by human skulls, jets of steam and huge unidentifiable metal contraptions, I ask?

And then, eyes squinting against the harsh summer sunlight, we left the gloom of the museum and headed outside to the yard. This sprawling area was full of all kinds of junk in various stages of being turned into one sort of sculpture or another. One man’s treasure, and all that.

The sculptors have definitely got a thing for skulls and tractors at this place. The enormous cannon behind it was rather cool as well, mind you…

Although most of the sculptures definitely fell into the large category, there were several pieces that were at least a little smaller. A crank handle that will never crank again, for instance, or a weathered bell on an equally weathered column.

By this stage Lauren had despaired of ever leaving Steampunk HQ, sitting in the corner with her head in her hands as I extolled the virtues of yet another unidentifiable, yet oddly beautiful, welded metal object. I mean, seriously … we hadn’t even gone and played on top of the train yet!

The centrepiece of the yard was a full-length train carriage that functioned as a workshop, office, sculpture and playground. When there was such an inviting ladder hanging off the side … well, there was just no way that we couldn’t scale it, even if just to get a better view of the giant fly hanging out near the top of the building.

Let’s just say we weren’t disappointed once we got up there.

There was so much more to see and do than what we had time for – sadly we had an appointment to keep in Dunedin that afternoon and had to keep moving after an hour or so. Two of the three of us could happily have spent the entire day there……

Steampunk HQ is an ambitious and unique project to undertake, especially in a place like Oamaru, but I think that the small team behind it have got the right idea. It’s accessible enough to the general public that people will just pop in for a look, while staying true enough to the genre that hard-core fans shouldn’t be put off. At ten bucks it’s pretty cheap entertainment, especially by New Zealand standards, and there’s enough in there to leave you easily feeling that you’ve got your money’s worth.

In short, if you’re passing through Oamaru as I had done so many times in the past, give yourself an extra hour or two and follow the signs for Steampunk HQ instead. There’s really just nothing else like it in the country.

Thanks to the lovely people at Steampunk HQ for waiving the entrance fee for us, and taking time out of their day to show us round and chat about the museum (and life in general!)