Switzers Northern Southland Museum and Giant Bottle Waikaia

This tiny little dot of a town has a giant bottle attached to its rebuilt museum.

Only 120 people live in Waikaia but they are proud of their heritage, which dates back to the 1860s. Unfortunately their museum building wasn't much younger, and borer had got the better of it by 2017 so it had to come down, amazingly the bottle made from bottles attached to it was unscathed. A new museum was put up in it's place, using many recycled building materials from the old one.

When Waikaia was in it's goldrush heyday, it use to be called Switzers, so that's what the Museum is called. For some reason it is a gathering point for old glass, with 20,000 bottles having been fashioned into a giant bottle. Thousands more glass artifacts are in the museum's collection, a delight to vintage glass buffs.

It is not too hard to find this landmark, with the bottle and museum standing proud directly across the road from the hotel and next door to the Post Office, where you can hire a pan to try your luck for gold in nearby Winding Creek. As well as a spot of fishing there are other quaint attractions in Waikaia, check them out, one is a pop up Cinema in the old Masonic Lodge.

Image Credits: King Solomon's Gold Mine 1935, Waikaia, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries