Sometimes, you just stumble on something weird.

Today was that day.

Oamaru is yet another postcard perfect New Zealand town with cute Victorian houses on every corner and a bustling Main Street. Just the kind of place you imagine window shopping away an afternoon and sipping tea in a corner cafe with sun filtering through the rose hedge.

And then, you turn the corner and see the locomotive flying up into the air and completely off the rails with a skull faced driver grinning into the wind. The blimp hangs next to the Kaliedo Machine, and by then you’ve got a van full of teenagers just about hanging out the window extolling the coolness and a stop must be made.

And truly, Steampunk Headquarters is cool. I could tell you about it, but instead, we’ll just show you some pictures.

For those of you not hip to the whole Steampunk thing… think the evil twin of all things Victorian and a parallel world where everything is pieced together out of old clockwork and bits of scrap metal and run on steam engines. The term was coined in 1987 and a whole movement of art and literature has grown out of it. Of course the kids think it’s fantastic… and I do too.