45th Parallel II (South)

New Zealand, just outside Oamaru, halfway between the Equator and the South Pole. An understated marker along Highway 1. We nearly missed it!

The plaque on the stone reads:

Waitaki County Council
This stone marks 45° S.
Halfway between the Equator
and the South Pole.
1939

A bookend find to my 45th Parallel find from July 23, 2014.

A version of this was originally published on the now-defunct Findery on September 19, 2014. Findery was something of an Instagram for places, and a site I really enjoyed. It went offline sometime in early 2022. I’ve decided to reproduce a few of my Findery posts for posterity.

GPS Coordinates: -45.00067, 171.05265 Google Maps (WGS84 Standard Datum)

I first wrote about this post in my email newsletter Dispatches from Nowhere. If you’d like to read more about cultural oddities and offbeat happenstances, I invite you to sign up:

Header image: The Southern 45th Parallel Marker in 2014. Photo from the author’s collection.