Australia's most iconic BIG Thing but definitely not the first.
The BIG Banana is roughly the fourth Australian BIG Thing if you consider the Luna Park Face (1912) and Ploddy the Dinosaur (1963) as Roadside Tourist traps. If you don't, sure! It's the second (Sorry Tocumwal), superseded by Adelaide's BIG Scotsman built in 1963.
The Big Banana was officially a thing on the 22nd Dec, 1964. It's the face of The Big Banana Fun Park, a 45 acre banana plantation and amusement park.
1912 - Luna Park Face
1963 - BIG Scotsman
1963 - Ploddy the Dinosaur
1964 - Big Banana
Commissioned by the Banana Parks owner John Landi he contracted local engineer and builder Alan and Alan. Alan Chapman designed the BIG Banana and builder Alan Harvey built the 13m long banana with construction beginning in September and completed in Dec.
The BIG Banana is one of Australia's most photographed BIG Things! For this reason I wouldn't recommend trying to visit this on school holidays or a weekend. The line for taking a proper selfie with this was almost bigger than the banana itself. The staging area did have a camera mount a few meters back though so no need for someone to take the photo for you.
It had been a very long day exploring Coffs Harbour and I didn't have the patience to line up and take a proper photo so I waited patiently and managed to capture a relatively people free photo between someone finishing up a photo session and a new person waiting. It took 4 sets of people to capture this so if you visit this icon be sure to mentally prepare yourself for a lengthily wait.
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