This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
38.24444° S, 175.18261° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
A giant apple on State Highway 3 near the Waitomo Caves turnoff is not advertising an orchard. It is advertising a café called the Big Apple.
The landmark stands at about seven and a half metres and is associated with the Big Apple café and homestead complex, and RNZ's survey of New Zealand's oversized sculptures lists it plainly among the country's roadside collection – alongside Cromwell's Big Fruit, which has greeted visitors since 1989, and Ohakune's carrot, which has survived forty-one years.
The siting explains everything. The Waitomo Caves are among the most visited attractions in the North Island, drawing very large numbers of people down State Highway 3 to see glowworms in limestone caverns, and the turnoff is the point at which all that traffic concentrates. A business there does not need to be near anything else; it needs to be at the junction, and to be visible.
An apple is essentially arbitrary in this district – the King Country is sheep, cattle and limestone rather than orchards – and that arbitrariness is worth noting rather than glossing over. This is the naming-not-produce branch of the tradition, where the object explains the business's name rather than the region's crop.
Seven and a half metres is a serious size for a café sign, matching Ohakune's carrot almost exactly.
Nothing available settles a materials note, the date and the builder.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Recent New Zealand cultural coverage continues to identify the Big Apple at Waitomo as a current roadside sculpture associated with the Big Apple café/homestead complex; the landmark is historically about 7.5 metres high.
ACCESS
The Big Apple stands beside Waitomo Homestead at 584 State Highway 3. Navigate to the operating Homestead visitor complex and use its off-street parking; the sculpture itself is map-checked separately from the visitor arrival point.
