A mother-and-son gardening session at their Rotorua home has unearthed a piece of Rotorua history. Utuhina resident Amie Watson and her 3-year-old son Oscar were digging in their back garden yesterday afternoon to plant a tamarillo tree when the spade hit something hard. Rotorua Daily Post reporter Caroline Fleming popped
Rotorua woman finds incredible object buried in back garden
Sure enough, as she dug the earth presented a range of body pieces from an old car and a bunch of dated medicine bottles, one with a lid still on.
Before Watson knew it, she had two antique wheel rims, some old suspension springs and a rusted chassis, along with other small car parts.
She took to social media with her find and was quickly informed that what she had unearthed was likely the remains of a 1920s Ford car.
Watson, who had owned the Kahu St property for about a year said it was "unbelievable" that all of this had been found in a hole only about 2 to 3 metres in size each way.
As the local car club caught wind of the news, Watson was told she should keep digging for more parts, which she was both keen and wary about.
She said she was interested as to what may lay underneath and how the car parts had got where they were, but she did not want holes throughout her well-kept garden.
The call has now gone out for any car fanatics who may want the pieces, otherwise, Watson said she would be making them into garden ornaments.
If nothing does come from it, it would be a "great conversation piece around the firepit" either way, she said.
When her brother enquired what had happened with the pipe saga, Watson told him to his disbelief.
Watson laughed as she said "I found a car, sucker!"
Old bottle collector and local antique fanatic Soren Thomasen said the items were not a common find in the area.
He said the Utuhina area used to be all farmland back in the day, so the remains and the bottles could be the result of an old farm dump.
More excitingly, he said people could have stolen the car back in the day and that location may have been their dumping ground.
The bottles, in particular, could have various markings on them with a date or chemist engraving which would be of interest to collectors, he said.