Crimson King is a giant anthropomorphic swede in Ohakune’s Carrotland Adventure Park, part of the playful oversized vegetable family surrounding the famous carrot.
Venue entrance
P
Parking
onsite
Private to your Passport.
PLAN YOUR VISIT
Recommended arrival available
Attraction entrance
This takes you to the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
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This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
Site-level location · 39.4200° S, 175.4037° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
The Crimson King is a giant swede with a face, and he is one of the carrot's courtiers.
Ohakune's Carrotland has grown steadily outward from the 7.5-metre carrot that has stood in the town since 1984, and the additions are a cast of anthropomorphic vegetables rather than a set of neutral replicas. Visit Ruapehu lists Crimson King – also billed as the Superlative Swede – among the giant vegetable friends accompanying the famous carrot.
Giving the vegetables names and faces is what turns a collection of objects into a place. A row of accurate giant vegetables would be a display; a carrot with a court of named companions is a world, and it is aimed squarely at children who will remember the swede's name long after they have forgotten the height of the carrot.
The swede is also a genuine Ohakune crop rather than a whimsical addition. The volcanic soils on the southern side of Ruapehu grow root vegetables extremely well, and swedes have been part of that mix alongside the carrots the district is known for.
Crimson King is a real cultivar name, which makes the regal framing a pun on a seed catalogue rather than an invention.
The park exists to solve a specific problem: Ohakune runs a winter economy on the ski mountain and needs reasons for families to stop in the other seasons. A carrot voted Landmark of the Year in 2023, a rocket, and a swede called the Crimson King are what that answer looks like.
No one recorded the maker's name, the measurements and any date at all.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Visit Ruapehu explicitly lists Crimson King / the Superlative Swede among the giant vegetable friends accompanying the famous Big Carrot at Carrotland.
ACCESS
This giant vegetable is within Carrotland Adventure Park beside the Big Carrot. The stored object point is the established Big Carrot/Carrotland site anchor rather than a claimed exact centroid for this individual sculpture. Use the park’s separately map-checked visitor arrival at 4A Rangataua Road.
