Wales Tourism and Visit Planning

Land of Giants

Author: Chloe Osborne
photograph by Michael Kraus
From the Big Merino to the Big Apple, eh?” an Australian man, a fellow expat, said to me once in a New York City bar. It was an arch way of telling me that he knew exactly where I came from. The Big Merino is a three-story-tall, 97-ton sculpted cement ram that towers on the outskirts of Goulburn, New South Wales. It is the symbol of the sheep-farming district, where both meat and wool are produced and where I grew up as the daughter of a sheep farmer. If my countryman intended me any slight, he failed, because I am fond of the Big Merino. I love the enormous folds of concrete under his chin, his straight mouth and stern gaze. He looks proud and wise—if you ignore the tourist shop built into his belly.

Holiday In Wales There are many such Big Things, as they’re known, scattered across Australia. Looking like overblown pieces from a toy farm set or a plastic fruit bowl, these fiberglass or concrete giants are monuments to Australia’s local industries. If you zigzag down our eastern coast, you will encounter most of them—the Big Pineapple and the Big Banana (the two most famous); the Big Prawn, Cheese, Avocado, and Lobster; and the lesser-known Oyster, Bull, Potato, Trout, and Orange.

St. Martin This bijou island, unspoiled by mass tourism, clear waters. Discover an idyllic land of blended cultural influences.

Holiday Wales If the love of large icons sounds more like an American affliction than an Australian one, it may not come as a surprise that the first Big Thing, the Big Banana at Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, was built in 1964 by a Yank, John Landi. It’s not quite Disneyland, but the 40-foot-long fruit does have a small adjoining theme park devoted to it. At the Big Pineapple, built in 1971 in Woombye, Queensland, busloads of people come to climb the spiral staircase inside the majestic 50-foot fruit and wave from under its crown. The Pineapple is part of Sunshine Plantation, which is also the home of the Big Macadamia. Plantation visitors may ride an old sugarcane train through the property and take a tour of a macadamia orchard, a nut-processing plant, and even a wildlife sanctuary.

Kenya is regarded by many as the %¡ewel of East Africa% and has some of the continent%š finest beaches, most magnificent wildlife and scenery, and an incredibly sophisticated tourism infrastructure. It is a startlingly beautiful land, from the coral reefs and white sand beaches of the coast to the summit of Mount Kenya, crowned with clouds and bejewelled by strange giant alpine plants.

I love my land’s Big Things. They are humble mascots that announce to people passing through, “This is who we are.” And that guy from the bar should have known better: The Big Apple is actually in Stanthorpe, Queensland.