Big Things of Australia (that you may not have heard of)

May 14th, 2012

Appliance Talk

If you travel Australia as much as the Appliances Online delivery drivers, while out on the road you inevitably come across one or more of Australia’s Big Things – oversized monuments to favourite objects of special significance to their area.

For just one example, one our drivers (with sister company Winning Appliances) celebrated a delivery to Tamworth with this snap the truck alongside the Golden Guitar in Australia’s country music capital:

While everyone has heard about the Big Banana, Big Pineapple, and a few of their local examples from the long list of Australia’s Big Things, here are a few of our favourites, hopefully including a few unusual ones that you may not have heard of (we hadn’t!)…

Big Wine Bottle, McLaren Vale, SA

Aussies enjoy a good drop of the grape, and have built more than one enormous monument to celebrate this love.  Big Wine Bottles can be found in Pokolbin, NSW, and Rutherglen, Victoria.  A Big Wine Cask can be found at Mourquong, NSW, as well, for those preferring a less pricey option.

But taking the cake is the Big Wine Bottle in McLaren Vale, SA, constructed entirely from recycled wine corks.

The 10m sculpture is constructed from 55,630 corks, wired together with mesh.  That means the contents of approximately 208 large wine storage cabinets had to be polished off to build it.

The sacrifices we make in the name of art…

Big Coffee Pot, Deloraine, TAS

Need coffee?  Need… LOTS of coffee?  Then come to Tasmania, where you can find the Big Coffee Pot in Deloraine.

The Big Coffee Pot is located 4km out of Deloraine on the Deloraine-Chudleigh Road.  If its titanic appearance inflames a desire within you for caffiene or souvenirs, there is a cafe and a pottery shop nearby.

Of course, if you’re not prepared to travel, we can deliver a coffee machine to your door to provide a shot or two of the good stuff in record time.  Plus, many of them are designed to fit easily into most kitchens, which we think would be the Big Coffee Pot’s main drawback as an appliance for the home.

Big Tap, Cowes, VIC

Located on Phillip Island, approximately 140 km from Melbourne, this giant purple tap seemingly floats in midair.  Is it magic?  Technosorcery?  A sophisticated illusion?  You’ll just have to see it to find out.

Beneath the tap is A Maze ‘N Things, an attraction that’s all about mazes, optical illusions and (judging by its name) groan-inducing puns.

This Big Tap does demonstrate a good idea, though – most taps would be much more more convenient if they could levitate around the kitchen to where they were needed most.  We’ll drop a line to some engineers…

Big Fruit Bowl, Bilpin, NSW

We could go on and on about all the different kinds of Big Fruit found in Australia.  Bananas, pineapples, apples… if there’s a fruit, someone has embiggened it.

So to get as much variety as possible, try the Big Fruit Bowl at Bilpen in the Blue Mountains.

I can just imagine putting all that big fruit into a big blender and creating a big smoothie…

Big Beer Can, Cobar, QLD

After those Big Wine Bottles, and now this Big Beer Can at the Grand Hotel in Cobar, QLD, anyone would think that Australians were fond of a drink.  Hmmm…

This can was recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s Largest Beer Can in 1991.  It’s understood that the can, which is 5m tall and 2.5m in diameter, would hold around 22,000 litres of beer if filled.

I’m sure that even an LG Blast Chiller would take more than 5 minutes to get this beer frosty and cool…

What’s your favourite Big Thing in Australia?  And what appliance would you use with it?