Photo: Bernard Spragg. NZ from Christchurch, New Zealand (Public domain)
A self-guided audio walking tour of Ōamaru, from the Public Gardens through the whitestone town to the harbour. It starts in the gardens, opened in 1876 on a reserve set aside in the 1858 town survey, and visits Janet Frame's childhood home at 56 Eden Street, where her family lived from 1931 to 1943. Then the churches and public buildings: Saint Patrick's Basilica with its three domes, begun in 1893 to Francis Petre's design, Saint Paul's Presbyterian Church, the Opera House, built of local Ōamaru stone as town hall and theatre, and the Courthouse of 1883, built in blocks each about the size of an armchair. Along Thames Street come the Athenaeum that is now the North Otago Museum, the Chief Post Office of 1883–84, now the district council, and the pair of banks by Robert Lawson, the Bank of Otago of 1870–71 and the Bank of New South Wales of 1883, now the Forrester Gallery, with Saint Luke's spire above. The walk ends in the harbour quarter: the Criterion Hotel of 1877, Smith's Grain Store, built in 1882 to hold 30,000 sacks of grain, Harbour Street's stores and warehouses on reclaimed foreshore, Holmes Wharf of 1907 and Sumpter Wharf of 1884, built for the frozen-meat ships.
16 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 50 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata · 6 cross-referenced entries (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Oamaru Public Gardens, Janet Frame's house, Saint Patrick's Basilica, Saint Paul's Presbyterian Church, Oamaru Opera House, Oamaru Courthouse.
North Otago Museum, Waitaki District Council, ANZ Bank Building (Former Bank of Otago), Forrester Gallery (Former Bank of New South Wales), Saint Luke's Anglican Church.
Criterion Hotel, Smith's Grain Store, Harbour Street, Holmes Wharf, Sumpter Wharf.
The railway worker's cottage at 56 Eden Street, home to Janet Frame and her family from 1931 to 1943, restored by a trust.
Francis Petre's Roman Catholic basilica, its three domes visible across Ōamaru, begun in 1893 for about 1,000 worshippers.
Forrester and Lemon's courthouse of 1883, built of whitestone blocks each about the size of an armchair, behind a Corinthian portico.
Robert Lawson's bank of 1883 on Thames Street, with the banking hall below and the manager's home above, now a gallery.
An ornate Italianate store of 1882, built to hold 30,000 sacks of grain.
The deep-water wharf of 1884 built for the refrigerated steamers of the frozen-meat trade to Britain.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 16 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 16 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Oamaru — the Victorian Whitestone Town and Harbour, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
16 narration points, including Oamaru Public Gardens, Oamaru Opera House, ANZ Bank Building (Former Bank of Otago), Forrester Gallery (Former Bank of New South Wales) and Harbour Street. That is about 22 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 16 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.