“May your wisdom grace us until the stars rain down from the heavens.” Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe C.S. Lewis 1950

We pull into Oamaru . The roads are being resealed, dust rises as utes and trucks drive over the metal road surface. A haze fills the sky . I disembark, head to the Lagonda Tea Room. From it’s attached bakery next door I buy the last mutton pie. Mutton Pie is a glorious thing. It is the descendent of the Scotch Pie tradition that the Scottish emigrants brought to Otago. It remains a regional specialty. I walk down to where the railway blocks access to the sea and eat the delicious pie gazing through the dust. The pie is rich and meaty and deeply savoury , the view is positively frontier town. There is something unusual about Oamaru , it is by the sea but it is not of the sea . The ocean is there and yet it is always somewhat removed from the town.

Oamaru is an unusual mixture of provincial conservatism, Victorian reenacting ‘Trads’ and Sci Fi Victorian Steam Punkers , the town is enriched by the tension but tension it is.
I first came to Oamaru 15 years ago. I was working as a cheesemonger and we were invited to Whitestone Cheese’s 20^th Anniversary event. Whitestone are a major force in the town and a significant employer. The function was held in an old wool shed surrounded by slowly aging whisky casks, portaloos were brought in for the occasion. I remember the amazing old stone buildings , the characterful pubs , and the cheesemaker who told me that housing was expensive in New Zealand because of pernicious Japanese property investors who were taking over the country from afar. I argued with him. As is most often the case arguing was futile.

Michael Obrien pulls up in the brewery delivery van. Michael is an enigma, a craftsman, a man of strong opinions and idiosyncratic language. He lives his life in Victorian garb, lives in an 1870’s stone cottage with a brash modern 1907 extension, his mum recently had electricity connected to her cottage, at 90 she decided a fridge might be useful. With his partner Lee-Ann they are Craftwork Brewery. Lee-Ann is the brewer . They make traditional Belgian beer and have created a temple to it amongst the Victorian White Stone Precinct. The less mention of Steam Punk the better.   

Michael takes me up to a lookout on the hill. He tells me about the latest things the Steam Punkers have done to stray from the trad path, and he tells me history. It’s a story of boom and bust and the first freezing works and the first lamb exports to blighty and economic depression and the end of the line for small coastal ports. The boom put up all the white stone grandeur , the bust meant they didn’t have money to pull it all down and modernise it.

I’m staying with Michael in his adjoining AirBnb  cottage ‘The Bookbinders Retreat’ . It’s a symphony of copper and polished wood, has it’s own baby range, it’s perfect. Michael leaves me to settle in. I shower , and make tea.   

As I walk into town I have a skip in my step. All is right with the world and all that isn’t I’m forgetting right now. I pass the massive empty RSA carved from the ubiquitous white stone. Every public tree in the town has a cross and a name of a fatality from The Great War. I head to The Criterion first . An ornate Victorian pub that has struggled financially through the years but has recently reopened. I drink a pint of Emerson’s Bookbinder, a beer at least in part originally brewed with Michael in mind. Then on to Craftwork.

Stepping into Craftwork is like stepping into Brussels . Polished wood, Victorian grandeur , the odd modern art deco flourish . I spend the night with Lee-Ann and Michael drinking great beer , eating great cheese and discussing the big stuff. Mortality, dementia , the plan from here, retirement fantasies. Michael and Lee-Ann live in separate houses. If I were ever to find someone again I would too. Sometimes people express disapproval at this. They seem to think that matrimonial cold warfare over domestic arrangements is what it is about. The mark of doing it right. I can think of better things to do with a partner.
Lee-Ann wants to retire to Port Chalmers. She tells me the specific house. She has told the current owner of her plans. I say I will add my positive mental power towards it happening when I am there in a couple of days.

Later in Michael’s kitchen we eat pasta bake, drink beer, then we eat cheese made from the milk of deer , there is something a little surreal about that, something a little Narnia. We move on to the sitting room and whisky is taken. Michael shows me his miniature solders, a battle between Napoleon and The King of Prussia. We listen to Nick Cave. More whiskey is taken. Michael talks of his apprenticeship in bookbinding in London. He talks of how he wanted to bind books artistically rather than the more utilitarian functional trade he practiced here. He could have followed that path but he came home. Here utility triumphs over art. We move on to politics, mainly local. Lee-Ann has warned me that if he gets onto the war in Ukraine he won’t stop. She says tell him you are not interested and move on. I don’t need to. The world is put to rights, it’s mostly the world within Oamaru but of course it will all be wrong again tomorrow. I look at my phone and see it already is tomorrow. It’s 2am and I’m full of drink, still I resist invading Prussia. Today has been wonderful, I will pay the price when the sun rises.