Our Rooms
Our rooms
The Wansbeck has three rooms for B&B guests
True coastal romance inspires your stay at The Wansbeck. Wake up refreshed to a complimentary breakfast cooked or continental in the hospitality of our breakfast dining room. Breakfast options are requested by 8.00pm the previous evening. Children are welcome. We do not accommodate pets.
Our three rooms are all upstairs. We only accommodate one booking of up to 5 people at a time, at $200.00 per night for 2 people plus $90.00 per additional person including breakfast.
The Monterey Room.
The Monterey Room looks out over the township of Oamaru and the magnificent sweep of the coast of Oamaru Harbour reminiscent of Monterey Bay especially for its similarity in the harbour and boats and gulls, the sea mists and the same magic light just before the sun tips the horizon. And Oamaru had its boom days back in the 1860s just as did Cannery Row.
The Steinbeck Room
The Steinbeck Room in honour of John Steinbeck (the famous author of “Cannery Row” and “Mice and Men” and other great novels written in Monterey) looks out over Friendly Bay dotted with fishing boats at anchor and Cape Wanbrow where fur seals lie basking in the sun.
The Garden Room.
The Garden Room which looks out over the back garden of The Wansbeck where roses bloom and Tuis, Bell Birds and Silver Eyes sip nectar from the sugar jar.
* Off season April – September; High season October – March
A tribute to John Steinbeck, Winner of the Nobel Prize 1962
“As it happens sometimes. A moment settled and hovered and remained for much more than a moment. And sound stopped and movement stopped for much, much more than a moment.”
“A guy needs somebody—to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.”
Of Mice and Men.
Published in 1937.
John Steinbeck
“And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval. The great owners with access to history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hand it is taken away. And that companion fact: when majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history:
repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression. The money was spent on arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out. The changing economy was ignored, plans for change ignored; and only means to destroy revolt were considered while the causes of revolt went on.”
The Grapes of Wrath.
Published in 1939.
John Steinbeck
“It’s all fine to say, “Time will heal everything, this too shall pass away.
People will forget”—and things like that when you are not involved, but when you are there is no passage of time, people do not forget and you are in the middle of something that does not change.”
“It is the hour of pearl—the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.”
Cannery Row
Published in 1945.
John Steinbeck
Your hosts
Your hosts John and Carol Robertson have relocated from Waiheke Island having sold their law firm from which John has retired after 22 years in law and now setting up a B&B at 24 Wansbeck Street Oamaru. Prior to practising law, John was a research scientist in what was then the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.
Carol has taken a position in an Oamaru law firm and is excited about making a contribution to life in Otago. Carol was born and bred in Otago having attended East Otago High School before moving to Auckland.
Carol and John are looking forward to hosting guests at The Wansbeck and establishing their new life in North Otago.
