Where to see toy walls, painted cows and a clock that never stops

In the deep south, a village made entirely from reclaimed demolition finds is worth a visit, author Peter Janssen told Summer Times.

Demolition World is a byproduct of the various weird and wonderful things found by an Invercargill demolition company, he says.

“They've created this little village where they've taken recycled material, they've not restored it, and they've built little buildings.

“So, you get a little church, a little school, and then they've put all sorts of stuff in these buildings that they've found in the buildings they've demolished.”

The village includes a church complete with windows, a pew and a mannequin in a wedding dress, he says.

“It's got a sort of a worn-out gothic feel about it. It's fantastic. And I think you pay $5 to go in.”

A very unusual clock can be found in the science building at Otago University. It was made by Richard Beverly a Scottish clock maker who came to Dunedin in the 1860s when the town was in the midst of a gold boom, Janssen says.

“They had the Dunedin Exhibition in 1864 and he created this clock, which he put into a glass case. And he uses the variations in air pressure and in temperature to drive a small diaphragm, which keeps the clock moving.”

Apart from some routine maintenance, it has not stopped ticking since he made it, Janssen says.

“It's the second oldest scientific experience in the world.”

Wellington is home to a memorial to a very special dog.

“Paddy the Wanderer was an Airedale Terrier. And his owner was a 12-year-old girl who died of pneumonia when she was 12. And her father was a seaman, so she went with Paddy often to the wharves to meet the father.

“And when she died, Paddy went to the wharf, and he just roamed the wharf, looking obviously for her or the father.”

Paddy became beloved of seamen, water siders, and the Harbour Board made him an official guardian to guard the wharves from pirates, smugglers and rodents, he says.

“When he died in the winter of 1939, and they had a funeral procession through the streets of Wellington, led by taxi drivers, and that brought the town to a standstill."

A memorial still stands to Paddy today in the capital, he says.

“It's got a water bowl for the dogs, and it's got a drinking fountain for the humans, and it's got a little silhouette of Paddy outlined in brass.”

In the 1970s, when a woman called Faye Young found some lost toys by Bridge Park in Eltham, Taranaki, she put them on a wall thinking kids would find them, he says. But people came along and added more toys, the toys grew and eventually the town's toy wall was born.

“They cemented all these toys into the wall, and it's just amazing, clearly, there's stories being told. There's a superwoman, and she's got 20 dwarfs, there's a shark chasing a dinosaur and Peter Pan fights off some big bloke with a spade.”

When Young died, locals created a fairy village above the wall, he says

“There's some buildings and a church, and they her put ashes in the church.”

Morrinsville may not have a reputation of being a terribly exciting town, he says, but it’s famous herd of cows puts it on the map.

“Someone clever in Morrinsville thought, okay, we're a dairy town. So they got a mould of a large cow, and it's quite big. It's the size of a small Jersey cow, and they got 60 moulds of these, and they got local artists to decorate them.”

There’s a cow painted with scenery and cows with various geometrical designs, he says.

“You can go to the Morrinsville Visitor Centre, and they give you a map, and then you can go and find as many of those cows as you like, and it's really worth the visit, because they're really, really lovely, they're very stylish, and it's very, very clever.”