Mike Chowla
New Zealand - South Island:

Oamaru

Oamaru was one of those unexpected but totally delightful discoveries but I love about road trips. I'd seen mention of it in my guide books as a town with a good collection of Victorian buildings. Oamaru is quite an eccentric town. Residents strolling down the street in Victorian Dress would not be an odd sight.

Epilog: About three weeks after I got back home, I got a speeding ticket in the mail from an automated speed camera on the road out town, heading south. This speed camera is the most profitable one in all of the South Island and is the whole setup is a racket. This is a town of 14,000 people and they issue nearly 100 tickets a day. The road is quite wide at this point and the speed limit is well below a prudent speed so lots people get tickets and the governemnt pockets nearly $1M NZD a year in fines.

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