20,000 Wine Bottles

waikaia_bottle_house_750w

20,000 wine bottles in this bottle house standing tall in the small rural village of Waikaia, Southland, New Zealand. The big bottle is right in the centre of the village. If you look closely you can see the bottles have been carefully placed to create a patterned exterior. Its part of Switzers Museum and Bottle House (Switzers was the town’s original name).

Gold was discovered here in 1862. After many years of only recreational panning there is now a commercial operation Waikaia Gold working its way through a large area of river flats. Its a seven year alluvial gold mining operation that started at the end of 2013. By November 2017 they had recovered two tonnes of gold.

Earlier this year they had to move their mine plant 5km to another site. It took five trucks, a 240-wheeled trailer (actually seven trailers joined together) and 12 months of planning. Moving footage and photos at Mammoth mine plant moved.

Photo taken by Liz, 11 August 2018

Text and photo by Liz; Exploring Colour (2018)

27 thoughts on “20,000 Wine Bottles”

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    1. I read your comment to Nigel, idly wondering if the commitment referred to drinking the wine or building the giant bottle. His response was “Well, the pub is literally just across the road!” 🙂 🙂

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    2. I see another comment in the moderation queue agreeing with you Jane. The funny thing is that I hadn’t even thought about it! I guess I just assumed they don’t because they’re a very little village.

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