Like the Stanley Burgers served at nearby Stanley's Hotel, everything about Macraes gold mine is big.
Turn-off State Highway 85 near Dunback and head towards the tiny village of Macraes and you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the mining development.
It has grown substantially since operations and gold production started 20 years ago, when the mine life was then estimated at six or seven years.
Everything about the mine is mind-bogglingly colossal - from those giant trucks hauling rock around the site, and excavators weighing up to 360 tonnes, to the largest eagle to have lived - a 750kg stainless steel sculpture of the Haast eagle - on the hill above the village.
It is part of the Macraes Heritage and Art Park and it looks down on billboard-sized art works in a paddock. They don't do things by halves in this neck of East Otago.
A trip into Frasers underground mine is an eye-opener and any slight misapprehension of possible claustrophobia is quickly dispelled.
"You certainly find out what black is when you're down here," our guide, Geoff Hender, says as he pulls over occasionally in a utility to allow other vehicles and machinery to pass on the underground road.
You cannot help but admire those workers who spend their days working deep beneath the surface. And those we meet seem happy in their work and happy to be able to provide a good income for their families.
We stop for a look at the lunch-room. There's the obligatory pie-warmer, microwave and tea and coffee, with a pack of cards scattered on a table.
Back into the daylight and the ore processing is a complicated but fascinating process, involving crushing, flotation, grinding of the concentrate, pressure oxidation and leaching.
"We're a gold mine but you won't see any nuggets. People ask sometimes, 'Where are the nuggets?' . . . You don't actually see the gold because it's very fine, finer than talcum powder," Macraes operation general manager Bernie O'Leary explains.
Forget those images of early Otago gold-miners, picking specks of gold from their pans. This is high-tech stuff on a massive scale.
