Oamaru Airport

Oamaru Airport (ICAO: NZOU) is an airport located 20 km north of Oamaru just alongside of state highway 1, at Hilderthorpe in the North Otago region and the Waitaki District of New Zealand.

History

On 10 December 1960 South Pacific Airlines of New Zealand commenced a Douglas DC-3 service linking Oamaru north to Timaru and Christchurch and south to Alexandra and Invercargill. Later a stop in Gore was added. These flights ended on 28 February 1966. Later that day Mount Cook Airlines (MCA) took over also using DC-3 aircraft, serving Timaru and Christchurch.

In October 1968 Mount Cook Airline began using the 52 seater HS-748 aircraft into Oamaru.

A new sealed runway at the Oamaru Airport was passed as fully operational in March 1975.

Regular scheduled services were withdrawn in 1989. In 2005 the Waitaki District Council decided to reseal the main runway.

When scheduled services resumed in 2006 and the first BAe Jetstream 32EP arrived from Christchurch (operated by Air National on behalf of Eagle Airways) a crowd of approximately 500 people were present to view its landing. The aircraft operating the inaugural service was renamed The Spirit of Waitaki in honour of the reintroduction of services to Oamaru. However, regular commercial flights to Oamaru were again withdrawn on 1 January 2010.

Oamaru

Oamaru (ⁱ/ɒməˈruː/; (Māori: Te Oha-a-Maru), the largest town in North Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand, is the main town in the Waitaki District. It is 80 kilometres south of Timaru and 120 kilometres north of Dunedin, on the Pacific coast, and State Highway 1 and the railway Main South Line connect it to both. With a population of 13,750, Oamaru is the 27th largest urban area in New Zealand, and the second largest in Otago behind Dunedin.

The name Oamaru derives from Māori words meaning the place of Maru (compare with Timaru). The identity of Maru remains open to conjecture.

History

There are some important archaeological sites around Oamaru. Those at the Waitaki River mouth and at Awamoa both date from the Archaic (Moa-hunter) phase of Māori culture, when New Zealand's human population clustered along the south-east coast from about AD 1100. The Waitaki River mouth had at least 1,200 ovens. Awamoa saw the first archaeological excavation in New Zealand when W.B.D. Mantell dug there at Christmas 1847 and in 1852. Smaller Archaic sites exist at Cape Wanbrow and at Beach Road in central Oamaru. The distinctive Archaic art of the Waitaki Valley rock shelters dates from this period — some of it presumably made by the occupants of these sites. The area also features Classic and Protohistoric sites, from after about AD 1500, at Tamahaerewhenua, Tekorotuaheka, Te Punamaru, Papakaio and Kakanui.

Oamaru (New Zealand electorate)

Oamaru was a parliamentary electorate in the Otago region of New Zealand, during three periods between 1866 and 1978.

Population centres

The previous electoral redistribution was undertaken in 1875 for the 1875–76 election. In the six years since, New Zealand's European population had increased by 65%. In the 1881 electoral redistribution, the House of Representatives increased the number of European representatives to 91 (up from 84 since the 1875–76 election). The number of Māori electorates was held at four. The House further decided that electorates should not have more than one representative, which led to 35 new electorates being formed, and two electorates that had previously been abolished to be recreated, including Oamaru. This necessitated a major disruption to existing boundaries.

Through an amendment in the Electoral Act in 1965, the number of electorates in the South Island was fixed at 25, an increase of one since the 1962 electoral redistribution. It was accepted that through the more rapid population growth in the North Island, the number of its electorates would continue to increase, and to keep proportionality, three new electorates were allowed for in the 1967 electoral redistribution for the next election. In the North Island, five electorates were newly created and one electorate was reconstituted while three electorates were abolished. In the South Island, three electorates were newly created and one electorate (Oamaru) was reconstituted while three electorates were abolished. The overall effect of the required changes was highly disruptive to existing electorates, with all but three electorates having their boundaries altered. These changes came into effect with the 1969 election.