Ports were the beachheads of colonial expansion. No town could
prosper without one. Oamaru Harbour, which closed to shipping in 1974, is the best place in the country to see how and why
all New Zealanders once depended so heavily on sea transport.
European settlement at Oamaru began in 1853, and in the 1860s the town grew rich servicing pastoralists and gold
miners. Oamaru, though, was no port. Cape Wanbrow, a stubby little headland, gave
some shelter from southerly winds but none from easterlies.
