King Street, the town's main thoroughfare, preserves an unusually complete run of Victorian and Edwardian shopfronts dating from the 1880s through to the 1910s. Several of the buildings retain their original cast-iron verandas, leaded transom windows, and decorative pediments — the kind of small-town New Zealand streetscape that has often been lost to mid-20th-century redevelopment elsewhere.
A slow walk from one end to the other takes 20 minutes. The Temuka and Geraldine Times once had its offices here; several of the old hotels still operate. Look out for the heritage panels mounted on a number of buildings explaining their original use.