Locating a Loo

1 October 2018

No other country does toilets quite like New Zealand.

And yet interesting toilets are possibly one of New Zealand’s best-kept secrets. 

Ask someone what New Zealand is famous for, and toilets probably won’t appear on their list. But maybe they should? Kiwi-as Toilets is a guide to top toilets that deserve to be visited even if you don’t actually need to go!  Author Jo Knox wrote this quirky coffee-table travel-guide to take readers on a tiki tour of New Zealand’s top toilets. Not only are you able to relieve your bladder at what Jo calls ‘destination dunnies’, but you’ll be blown away by wonderfully weird WCs, loos with views and toilets that celebrate their region’s heritage and scenery, or showcase art and architecture.

Jo is a keen road-tripper and enjoys nothing better than taking off with her husband and two young boys in their campervan.  She wrote Kiwi-as Toilets after realising that many of the places they stopped at during their road trips had remarkable restrooms, flash-as facilities or loos with views.  She says, "You only have to look at what the Hundertwasser toilets have done for Kawakawa to see the positive impact that good toilets can have on a town, businesses and the community.” In other words, spending more than a penny on where people spend a penny shouldn’t be considered money down the toilet!

Jo hopes Kiwi-as toilets will start the ball rolling in giving our country’s top toilets the recognition they deserve and inspire other towns and businesses to join the toilet movement, transforming revolting restrooms to flash-as flushers.

After researching and visiting toilets all around New Zealand, Jo selected 65 Kiwi-as toilets that feature in her book that form a trail- a tourist toilet trail.  Photographs and facts about each featuring toilet are interspersed with splashes of toilet humour and toilet euphemisms, making the book an informative yet light-hearted read.  While some toilets are in major tourist destinations, many, like the Jailhouse toilets in OngaOnga Hawkes Bay, are in lesser-known locations. Jo hopes that taking this tiki tour of New Zealand’s top toilet stops will encourage people to make pit-stop detours from better-travelled routes and add a touch of quirkiness, humour and surprise to their photo collection and memories of New Zealand.

Just in time for Christmas, this book is ideal for road-trippers, people looking for a unique coffee-table book or those seeking that gift that has ‘something different’. Kiwi-as Toilets ($29.99 RRP) is available from all good book stores and can also be ordered directly from kiwiastoilets.co.nz.