Visit Demolition World in Southland

An eerily charming collection of salvaged buildings and curios grown out of a family scrap business. Part salvage yard, part ghost town, part scruffy Westworld, this eccentric “village” springs from one couple’s fascination with stuff, and their wish to take fellow treasure hunters on a journey through shared imagination. Demolition World is an extension of David and Lee Fallow’s family scrap business. Their collection, curated and staged as a mysterious small town, comes from years of buying and selling salvage, building demo, rescuing and recycling old structures, and scooping up stock overruns.

Beginning in 2003, they hit on an eerily charming way for customers to peruse it all, by elaborately set decorating their little corner of southern New Zealand. The familiar and the exotic create a carefully assembled community here, including an entirely rebuilt church (where a bride with golden ringlets is left at the altar), a pioneer kitchen, a toy shop, an imaginary medical and dental clinic (best to leave that one to the imaginary health department), and a medieval banquet attended by utterly bored metallic mannequins. The mannequin population also includes rare vintage models, some from as early as the 1940s, including a line-up of rainbow-haired beauties hanging from the rafters. If they don’t creep you out enough, feel free to poke around for the puppets.

• Free!
• Parking spaces available
• Self-guided tours