About four years ago there was a brief period of time in which there were three abandoned New Zealand themed parks in Japan; in Kagawa, Hiroshima and Yamaguchi – and to the best of my knowledge I am the only urban explorer to visit them all. One of them even twice…
There are many reasons to revisit abandoned places. At some I run out of time, so I come back to see more. At some mother nature prevents a full exploration with lavish vegetation in summer or snow in winter. Some I fell in love with and want to enjoy again. And then there are those nearby places I shoot several times in different seasons just because they are there and I have nothing better to do. The *Shikoku New Zealand Village* (in Kagawa prefecture) though I revisited for several reasons, despite the fact that I had been there just half a year prior: Different seasons (March vs. September), there was construction machinery parked nearby during my first visit, during summer I bought a toy drone that I wanted to try at a suitable place, and my friend Chris from New Zealand was interested in going – so we went.
Exploring a location a second time is equally different as exploring it with a friend. Exploring the Shikoku New Zealand Village a second time with a friend almost made me feel like coming home, showing him my old neighbourhood. (If you haven’t read the *article about my original exploration*, I recommend doing it now as I won’t repeat certain information in this article.) This time we entered straight away without scouting the perimeter, heading through a park like area straight to the barn – which was actually accessible this time. And people say there is no vandalism in Japan… Anyway, while I was still taking pictures inside, Chris headed towards the back of the barn where he found something I had overlooked the first time – a small museum like the one at the *Yamaguchi version* right next to what I assume was the sheep show; including information about different kinds of breeds. One of them was called “Romney”, which probably isn’t that funny anymore now, but 3.5 years ago, at the time of my visit, good old Mitt was running for president of the United States, so this made me chuckle at least a little bit.
From the small auditorium we continued to the little kart track and then deeper into the park, to the souvenir shop / restaurant called Oakland, with the landslide in front of it. (If you read the previous article, you know what I mean!) And to my total surprise… the landslide was gone! Right in front of the building was a brand-new road with a freshly secured slope, including a low fence. Now, why on earth would anybody repair a road at an abandoned themed park? We had no idea, so we continued to explore the park. Well, Chris explored, I just took some more pictures of the same old… and a video walkthrough of the Oakland House, which was accessible this time, too. Speaking of videos: Thanks to the nearby model plane airport I was able to fly my toy drone without making much extra noise, but the combination of me being a horrible pilot and the weather being overcast by the time I started filming created some barely watchable videos of which I chose the least eyesore one. It doesn’t have sound for obvious reasons… and the video is a bit choppy. But hey, what do you expect from a cheap five year told tech toy in this day and age? (Drones in general are not really urbex compatible, even modern ones with good or optional cameras – indoors they are hard to navigate and the rotors blow everything up / away, outdoors they tend to catch the attention of people passing by…)
And that’s pretty much it. Chris and I had a good time exploring the Shikoku New Zealand Village (again), and I was prepared to go back for a third round, but that never happened. Recent updates of the GoogleMaps satellite view though show that the construction work on the premises continued. All buildings except for the entrance and the Oakland House have been demolished, the pond has been drained, lots of vegetation has been removed, the ground levelled – the Shikoku New Zealand Village now is a huge solar farm… (And so is the nearby model plane airport!)
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Abandoned Kansai 
I find the idea of a New Zealand themed village (let alone three of them) really weird. I wonder if “oakland” is a mis-spelling of Auckland (NZs largest city).
Hey Su,
There is actually an active New Zealand Village left in Tohoku – and a dozen similar parks that were just branded differently, but have similar content, all run by the same company.
Oakland is indeed a spelling mistake, but I’m afraid I am the one who made it, thanks to my lack of day to day awareness regarding New Zealand – and the ridiculous katakana system. In Japanese it’s オークランド, which should be transcribed as ookurando. Of course I know that there is a city called Auckland, but the o of the katakana threw me off and I thought of California’s Oakland… which is also オークランド in Japanese.
Hi Florian. I’m amazed at the concept of a NZ theme park. I think I’ll have to go to the active one — one day. Your translation comment reminds me of a story (probably apocryphal) about an American who boarded what they thought was a flight to Oakland from somewhere in the US and ended up in New Zealand. Either it’s a myth — or it happened a long time ago when flying was a bit more relaxed. Thanks again for your post and comment!
Did your friend from New Zealand think it was anything like NZ? just curious! thanks for the post, I had no idea there were NZ villages in Japan either!
I love the way these places are just frozen in time. It’s amazing how it’s not contaminated by graffities or “post abandonment” activities.
Nice work Florian !
Thanks a lot, Rico!
I assume that this shooting range is colored by people who know each other and respect each other’s work – and there is plenty of space left, so they should be able to co-exist and be creative for quite a while.
Wow, a blast from the past, it was actually a happening place when I was in Japan nearly 30 years ago. I wonder what happened? There were lots of families everywhere, hordes of people. It seemed to work, I think it was the animals that were really the draw card, sort of like a interactive, hands on zoo. Does anyone know what happened? Just no succession planning?
Be interest to know.
I’m afraid those themed parks are just not spectacular enough anymore in the age of globalization. Furthermore, most of these park don’t / didn’t have good access to public transportation, which is a huge factor these days when more and more people live in big cities and don’t even own a car anymore.
I worked for 8 months at the shukoku New Zealand Mura ( village) back in 1998 when it was still running but at a big loss. I am a kiwi ( New Zealander) and I worked at the sheep show doing 3 shows per day. There were four kiwis working at the park in different areas. I absolutely loved my time there and enjoyed explaining in really bad Japanese about New Zealand to the Japanese tourists. The small museum was all farm stuff that was bought over from New Zealand. Each year the parks would all take kiwis on an 8 month contract to work there for wages and free return flights. It was a brilliant opportunity to travel!
I also visited the park after it was abandoned about 2012 (???) and found a lot of puppies running around the sheep show area. There were 5 New Zealand sheep dogs there when I was doing shows and I wondered if they had just released them into the wild and they had bred with local dogs maybe? Very cute pups!
I worked there too , It was an amazing experience. Straight from high school to working in Japan. Very sad about the dogs. I thought sheep and dogs were owned by Agredome sheep show Rotorua. Nz village must of bought the stock.It was the greenery park like farmlands , staff and Canterbury sports wear and nz beef and lamb at the bbq tables, There were also horse rides, and milk and ice-cream representing NZ.
Hi Kelly,
Amazing times working there with you in the beautiful village, so sad to see it like this and the dogs must be third generation now, marika.