Apocalypse Prep: The secret bunkers of Wanaka’s billionaires
A giant comet in the sky, a beautiful – a terrifying – ball of fire bringing your fate.
A massive wave that stretches so far over your head you can't see the sky anymore.
The ground cracking beneath your feet, waiting to swallow you whole.
The shockwave of fire and nuclear fission slowly filling the horizon, a wall of fire sprinting towards you.
We all know it's coming. But some people have really been taking the 'Would you survive the apocalypse?' question to a new level – specifically foreign billionaires in NZ with too much money and too little sense.
Enter stupid billionaire Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, one of the first investors in Facebook, and general Silicon Valley moustache-twirling villain. This is a man who thinks that blood transfusions from young people can stop the aging process. Money does not buy brains.
Peter was granted NZ citizenship in 2011, after spending just 12 days in the country, promising the government he would invest in a bunch of tech startups. He then vanishes back to Silicon Valley, California where he hasn't been seen in NZ since. The government also did ask him the favour of not telling anyone, the public didn't even find out until 2016.
According to The Guardian, he applied to the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDS) to build himself an ultra-luxury apocalypse bunker on the shores of Lake Wanaka.
The plans included a hillside complex featuring a lodge that sleeps 24 people, an accommodation pod just for Peter, landscaping (because every bunker needs a garden), water features (you need a water fountain during the apocalypse?) and a meditation space. You know, to recentre yourself after the end of the world. And the bunker was all designed by the guys who designed the stadium for the Tokyo Olympics.
The council rejected the proposal, saying it would damage the pristine environment. But to this day, Peter still owns the property he wanted to build it on.
While Peter tried to go the public legal route for setting up his survival bunker, I can’t say the same for other billionaires (allegedly, for legal purposes).
In 2020, CNN reported American company Rising S, which sells bunkers ranging from $40,000 USD into the millions, claimed that it sold dozens of bunkers to NZ. General manager Gary Lynch says they are “all over the place”.
When asked if Gary got permission from local councils to install them, he says, "We're supposed to, yes."
Another American company, Vivos, claims it's built a 300-person bunker in NZ, but when the founder was asked for details, he refused to say any more, or even confirm its existence.
But residents from the Queenstown/Wanaka area, where many of these bunkers are reported to be, say they have never seen them and don't believe that they exist.
Reported in 2020, Queenstown Lakes District Council said it didn’t have any resource consent applications for bunkers or similar projects’ requests (until Peter's request was rejected in 2022). Eight other South Island district councils all told CNN the same thing.
But maybe on my next stroll through Wanaka’s lake side walks, I’ll spot a billionaire on a shady building site.