Australia’s ‘big things’ are seeing a resurgence with tourists coming their way
Coronavirus has hit the regions hard, but it’s also helping a new generation discover the delights of Australia’s most fabulously over-sized attractions. SEE THE LIST & WHERE THEY ARE.
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COVID-19 is the great disrupter of our time, squashing entire industries while inflating others, but who would have thought at the beginning of this year that this poxy respiratory virus would help breathe new life into Australia’s big things?
Nobody could have predicted it. It’s one of those faintly preposterous facts of 2020: unlikely, but happening.
With overseas holidays still impossible, and showing no signs of hurrying back, Aussies are piling into their cars to see the sights of their home states, with mums and dads showing the kids the attractions they saw on their own family road trips in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.
Some counts of Australia’s “big things” put the figure as high as 150, but how do you really define “big”? Some, like the big fruit bowl in Bilpin, NSW, are of a middling size, while others, like Big Kev the brachiosaurus who stands guard outside a Bunnings outlet in Palmerston, NT, are true monsters. (After being put into storage in 2019, Kev was refurbished and reassembled to his full 18-metre glory in May this year.)
The big things are Australia’s take on the architectural folly, their size in keeping with the dimensions of a wide brown land, but adding a cartoony element to our far horizons. Sure, they might seem a bit daggy to some, but Australians have a great deal of affection for things that are a bit daggy. (See also our love for ugg boots, thongs and onesies.)
And we’re not afraid to share this side of ourselves to the world, either: who could forget the gorgeous winking kangaroo Matilda at the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games, or the giant twirling kewpie dolls at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics? They were moments that would make any Aussie smile.
Now a new generation are discovering the delights of our big things, such as the Big Banana (13m by 5m by 2.4m) in Coffs Harbour on the northern NSW coast.
Michael Lockman, the General Manager of the Big Banana Fun Park, told News Corp that while the venue had been a “ghost town” when lockdowns first hit, from July to mid-September they were seeing visitor numbers “basically on par with this time last year”.
Numbers had recently fallen away because of the Queensland/NSW border closure, he said, but Coffs Harbour was less exposed to the international market than some other destinations.
“Spending is not too bad,” Mr Lockman said.
“We’re only seeing a couple of per cent difference to 2019.”
Family groups are a core market for many of the big things, with many visitors in 2020 retracing their holiday footsteps from yesteryear.
“We hear people say all the time: ‘I came through years ago,” Lindy Kerr, owner of the gift shop connected to the Big Merino (15.2m) on the outskirts of Goulburn, NSW, said.
“We had to shut down for about two weeks at the end of March and beginning of April, but with JobKeeper, we’ve been able to stay open and that’s saved the business,” she said.
While weekday traffic was still “pretty slow,” she said, “we’re getting a lot of people from Canberra and Sydney on weekends because it’s an easy day trip.
“People are coming out of cities for the regional areas because they’re perceived as safer,” she said.
Sales of woollens at the gift shop during winter were “quite good”, while a new online store was also bringing in orders.
“But we don’t know what to expect from summer because that’s when we’d get our overseas visitors,” Ms Kerr said.
Elsewhere, locals have been so supportive of the produce at their closest big thing it’s led to stock run-outs.
Christen Short, co-ordinator of the Information Centre in Bowen, Queensland, home to the Big Mango (10m), told News Corp that the gift shop was forced to find back-up supplies of dried mango from around the state after locals bought up all the stock.
“Since Covid hit, people have been wanting to support local suppliers and they’re seeking out locally made products,” Ms Short said.
The mango sorbet continues to be a hot seller, she quipped.
“When we first reopened [after a two-month closure starting in late March], for the first week or so visitors were quite low, but it didn’t take long for the traffic to pick up and we’re now seeing quite a few people on the road,” Ms Short said. “We’ve seen a massive increase in traffic in the past month. Our number of Queensland travellers has more than doubled which is excellent to see.”
Frans Gous, owner of the Big Rocking Horse (18m) at Gumeracha in SA’s Barossa Valley also reported solid sales, particularly during September.
“We were closed for almost two months, but we had a very busy holiday period and lots of people came out – people who said they hadn’t been here for 20 years,” he said.
“We’ve seen quite a bit of spending – people have more money than before and sales of our wooden toys have been good.
“I hope that will continue.”
PODCAST: The Adelaide man who inspired Australia’s obsession with Big Things
The Big Rocking Horse’s South Australian rival in the size stakes, the Big Lobster (18m) in Kingston SE, was also walloped by coronavirus lockdowns, and was forced to shut its doors (claws?) for a gruelling 11 weeks. (Meanwhile, spare a thought for the owners and operators of the big attraction businesses over the border in Victoria, which remain in virtual stasis while the state fights to bring its outbreak under control.)
Big Lobster business owner Janet Parsons said the cafe and gift shop were now seeing “pretty good weekends”, although traffic was “not happening during the week”.
“The minute we were allowed to travel, at the end of May, we noticed the difference with people coming from Adelaide.
“It’s definitely increasing, no doubt about that, and most people are happy to spend, as long as they get a deal,” she said.
Other big things are less directly connected to commercial ventures. The Big Prawn in Ballina, NSW, was saved from demolition in 2011 by the local Bunnings, which refurbished the 35-tonne structure, moved it to the grounds of its new outlet and mounted it on stilts. (Making Bunnings the custodian of two big things.)
“It’s been popular with locals and visitors since we opened, with people regularly stopping by to take photos,” Ballina operations manager Roberta Maslen said. “We’re really proud to have such an iconic Ballina landmark out the front of our store.”
Further north, the Golden Gumboot (7.9m) in Tully, Queensland, has also been refurbished in recent years, with a new framework and lick of paint.
The height of the structure honours the record total rainfall that fell in Tully in 1950, although reportedly this is a point of some contention with neighbouring Innisfail and Babinda.
Rene Turvey from the Tully Visitor Centre said the denizens of those other towns could claim the Golden Gumboot for themselves if they could supply a rain gauge record as proof.
She said Tully had ben “doing OK for September in terms of tourist numbers”.
“We’ve got the whole state on the move. The Cassowary Coast has been pumping,” Ms Turvey said.
Her assertion seems to be backed up by the latest data from users of TripTech apps, which show increasing traffic to many of Australia’s regional destinations as lockdown ties loosen.
Over the past four weeks, Tasmania has seen 20 per cent growth in travel behaviour, followed by NSW which had a 14 per cent increase, and SA which had a 4 per cent increase.
While the data from Queensland did not show growth over the past month, some parts of the state now had visitation numbers that were only down four per cent on its 2019 figures.
With interstate border restrictions starting to ease, it appears likely that these figures will shoot up over the next few months. For regional Australia and its charming local attractions, the future’s looking big.
Originally published as Australia’s ‘big things’ are seeing a resurgence with tourists coming their way
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