The Best Biggest Thing

Big rocking horse
Originally uploaded by Petra Bos.

Some things here in Australia seem a little bit odd to me. An example is the abundance of awards. Every object or person can win an award in some category. There is the best bakery, the best restaurant, the best chef, the best menu, the best pie, the best cake, the best waiter, the best service, the best wine, etc, etc. Those awards are generally rewarded on a annual basis. This means that if you won the award 3 years ago, you could still use it for advertising purposes. Some of the awards are also very specific. The best chardonnay in a particular wine district in a particular year. Because of the abundance of those awards it seems to me that almost everybody or every thing has won one or more awards. You must be really bad in whatever you do not to win one at least in once.
Apparently they still work for commercial purposes though. Some times my colleagues recommend me things like a visit to a particular bakery because; ‘it has won some awards’.

A number of these awards are specific to the tourism industry. There are awards for the best attraction, the best entertainment, the best cultural attraction, etc, etc. A while ago I visited an attraction that had won an (in my opinion) odd award: The Best Biggest Thing.

Which brings me to another odd Australian thing. Australians like to build big things. Random big things that is. There is the big cow, big pineapple, big lobster, big banana, etc, etc. The purpose of these big things is normally of a commercial kind. They are located next to a main road, have a restaurant or souvenir shop on the inside or next to it and all tourist busses will stop for a photo opportunity. It works.

This Best Biggest Thing that I visited is a big rocking horse. It is located next to a toy factory where you can buy a miniature version of the Big Rocking Horse. The miniature version is slightly better than the original though; the big one doesn’t rock!

Other big things that are spread throughout Australia are the big oyster, big cigarette, big ant, big mosquito, big lawnmower, big Ned Kelly and a big earthworm. I visited this worm a number of years ago. It is located in an area south of Melbourne where giant earthworms live. So it was an obvious choice for the makers of this big thing to choose an earthworm as a subject. Inside the Big Earthworm is a giant earthworm museum with the real giant earthworms on display.

If I would be allowed to give an award for a big thing it wouldn’t be for the best biggest thing but for the weirdest biggest thing and the earthworm would have a fair chance of winning.