This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
37.38317° S, 175.67433° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
L&P – Lemon & Paeroa – is made from lemon juice and mineral water from the springs at Paeroa, and it has been sold for over a century on the slogan that it is world famous in New Zealand. The bottle in Ōhinemuri Park is the town collecting on that.
The giant bottle is not the original. A first version went up in 1968 and was dismantled once the holiday season ended. The one still standing was built afterwards by the Paeroa Borough Council together with Innes Tartan, the drink's manufacturer at the time, and unveiled in August 1969 – a civic body and a soft-drink company jointly erecting a seven-metre advertisement for a town, which is a very 1969 arrangement and a completely successful one.
It has not always stood where it stands now. The Hauraki District Council is unusually candid about why it moved: the bottle was originally sited too near the edge of the road, and because it was one of New Zealand's most photographed objects, the council shifted it back and built a whole park around it. It has been on the Ōhinemuri reserve site since 2002. That is a rare admission – a town redesigning public space around the volume of people stopping to take a picture of a bottle.
One current caution for anyone comparing photographs. In April 2026, Coca-Cola temporarily re-skinned the statue half brown and half clear to mark L&P moving to clear recyclable bottles. Older images therefore show a different finish from the landmark's current appearance, and the re-skin is a promotion rather than a permanent change.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Tourism and council sources establish the giant bottle as Paeroa’s enduring L&P landmark in Ōhinemuri Park. In April 2026 Coca-Cola temporarily re-skinned the seven-metre statue half brown and half clear to mark L&P’s move to clear recyclable bottles, so older photographs may show a different skin from the landmark’s current or future appearance.
ACCESS
Public visitor landmark in Ōhinemuri Park. Hauraki District Council states the park was built around the L&P Bottle and provides car parking, public toilets and picnic areas; route to the park rather than treating the bottle itself as a parking pin.
