BIG Things in a BIG Country Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alice Springs

Big Things in Australia are large novelty structures and sculptures seen throughout Australia. Some are advertising gimmicks to advertise local products (Big fruit types are very common) or are designed as tourist attractions. In 2022, there were 1075 Big Things registered in Australia.

Alice Springs (population 34 000 in 2025) is located in the Red Centre of Australia, approximately 1,492 km by road (941 miles) from its territorial capital in Darwin to the north, and Adelaide is about 1,531 km (966 miles) to the south. "The Alice," as it is known, is the only major centre over that entire north-south route.

The Alice Springs Public Library (officially the 'Nevil Shute Memorial Library') is a busy public library in the town centre with 120 000 visitors/year. One wall is adorned with a series of book covers, all with Neville Shute titles, who wrote various books set in Australia, with "A Town Like Alice" one of his most famous. Written in 1950, it tells the tale of an Englishwoman who survived a death march in WWII Malaya and, after the war, travelled to Alice Springs, to reconnect with a former Australian prisoner of war who had helped her. In 2020, another public artwork was installed in the library with Tjampitjinpa Kenda and his associates making two murals, 22 metres in length in total, called "All Them Tourists Goin' to Look at Countryside" and "Lookin' Through Gap at Alice Springs Town".

Answer: Australia's wettest region

Far North Queensland is arguably the wettest region in Australia, with rainfall exceeding 4000 mm (166 in) a year. Two towns, Tully and Babinda, 82 kms (51mi) apart via the Bruce Highway, vie for the title of the wettest town in Australia with a golden gumboot awarded annually to the winner. Babinda is slightly ahead with an annual average rainfall of 4,279.4 millimetres (168.48 in).

Nevertheless, the Big Golden Boot, replete with a green tree frog, was built and installed by the Tully Rotary Club. The fibreglass boot is 7.9 metres (25.9 ft) tall and reflects the record-breaking annual rainfall in Tully in 1950 (7,925 millimetres / 312 inches). There is a spiral staircase inside the boot and a viewing platform at the top. Photos inside the boot depict the town in flood conditions.

Answer: "Sunflowers" by Vincent Van Gogh

Between Tully and Rockhampton, you pass Bowen's big mango (Australia's centre of Mango growing regions). Emerald, a town of 10 000, is three hours inland from "Rocky".

The big easel is 25m (82 feet) tall, with the easel legs made out of steel tubing, and the plywood 'canvas' is 7 x 10 m, making it the largest painting in the Southern Hemisphere (The painting was reproduced by painting the plywood canvas when it was flat on the ground). There are seven paintings in Van Gogh's Sunflower series, with seven Big Painting installations planned globally. Emerald is the centre of Australia's Sunflower crop industry, so this was the Australian contribution. The first was installed in Altona, Manitoba, Canada, by Canadian artist Cameron Cross, who has responsibility for the entire project. The third painting was erected in Goodland, Kansas.

Answer: Brisbane Commonwealth Games 1982

Matilda was the star of the opening ceremony of the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games as well as the games' mascot. Matilda was a 13m (40-foot) motorised kangaroo which wooed Games' crowds by running laps of the stadium, blinking, winking, and moving her head. When she had finished surprising the crowds (it was a well-kept secret beforehand), she moved to the centre of the stadium where 20 schoolchildren, dressed as joeys, jumped out of her pouch to perform a trampolining display.

After the Games, it appeared at the entrance to the "Wet and Wild" Theme Park when it opened on the Gold Coast in September 1984. In 2008, it was bought by Puma Energy, which displayed Matilda at a service station on the Gold Coast Highway at Tugun. However, as it did not meet local planning regulations, it was transferred to one of the company's service stations in Gympie, 160 km (100 mi) north of Brisbane. When this service station closed, it was relocated to the Travistion Service Centre five kilometers (3 miles) to the south. It remains a tourist attraction.

Answer: Sunshine Coast

The Big Pineapple is a heritage-listed roadside attraction and tourist attraction and registered big thing in Woombye, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast (the only subtropical region in the answer options). It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register in 2009, in part because pineapple growing is both a traditional Queensland crop with a history dating back to the earliest Queensland settlement in the 1820s and because over 90% of Australia's pineapples are grown in Queensland. The Sunshine Coast region has always been the largest-growing region in Queensland.

The two-level Big Pineapple is 16 metres (52 ft) high and is situated on a 165-hectare (410-acre) working pineapple farm. The site opened as a tourist attraction in 1971. The tourist attraction is 40 acres (99 acres) and also includes a Macadamia Nut farm and factory, restaurant and café facilities, two miniature train rides, and a farm show and wildlife gardens.

Answer: The Big Swoop

The Big Swoop is a large sculpture (2.4m x 6.5 m - 8 ft x 11 ft) located in Canberra city's main shopping district. It was installed in March 2022. It depicts an Australian magpie devouring a chip. It was featured on a commemorative coin as part of a series of big things by the Royal Australian Mint in 2023.

The Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) is black and white, like its namesakes in Europe (Pica pica) and North America (Pica nuttalli and P.hudsoni), but it is a totally different species. The Australian bird is the size of a crow and just as intelligent. It is known for its swooping behavior and will often swoop on people who are eating in the open to steal food. However, around nesting seasons, magpies are are arguably the animal most Australians fear as they will swoop from behind and strike unsuspecting pedestrians on the back of the head and inflict a painful injury. Hence the statue's name - The Big Swoop.

Answer: Penguin

Penguin is a pretty town of 4100 people (2021 census) in northwest Tasmania. The Sulphur Creek Post Office opened in 1867 and was renamed Penguin Creek PO a year later. The settlement was named after several fairy penguin (aka little penguin) rookeries along its coastline. When the wharf was built in 1870 (in the absence of a river to build a port), the small town was named Penguin. Initially a timber town, it also produced potatoes and silver.

The Big Penguin, pictured, is 3 metres (10 feet) tall and made of ferrocement covered with fibreglass. It was unveiled in 1975 to celebrate the town's centennial. Various rubbish bins around the town are decorated with penguins, and bollards in the town centre are also shaped like penguins.

Batmania was an early name of Melbourne (no kidding!). Port Fairy in Victoria is named after a ship called Fairy. This town also has fairy penguin rookeries.

Answer: Lobster

The Big Lobster, known locally as Larry, is a roadside attraction in Kinston SE, a coastal town at the very southern part of South Australia. It celebrates the region's seafood industry. The landmark sits on a site with a restaurant and a visitor centre. The spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) is 17 metres (56ft) tall and made of fibreglass and steel and weighs four tonnes. The lobster was designed by Paul Kelly, who had previously built the Big Scotsman in Adelaide. It was built in a warehouse in Adelaide and transported to the site where it was reassembled. South Australian Premier David Tonkin opened the site on 15 December 1979

Larry the Lobster has been deemed one of Australia's most impressive Big Things. It has been featured on an official 50c Australia Post commemorative stamp issued in June 2007.

Answer: The Big Pigeon

The Rundle Mall in downtown Adelaide is the city centre's main shopping precinct. At 520 m (1700ft) long, the mall already has three examples of public art: two big silver balls (officially spheres, four life-size bronze pigs (one foraging in a rubbish bin), and an 1880s fountain. In 2022, a fourth piece was added - the Big Pigeon (officially known as Pigeon).

The two-metre-high pigeon is made from mirrored stainless steel. It was designed and built by local artist Paul Sloan and cost $174 000. The artist said he wanted to raise the status of the humble pigeon, as the birds are found in large numbers in the mall. He said, "They are the quiet witnesses of our day-to-day activities in the city, our observers from day through to night."

Answer: Prawn

It's a long way from anywhere to Exmouth in Western Australia. It is situated on the tip of North West Cape, 1,253 kilometres (698 mi) by air, north of the state capital, Perth. However, it is a base for those wanting to visit the World Heritage site, the Ningaloo Coast.

Despite being a small town of only 2500 (2021 census), it has two registered Big Things. The Big Whale Shark is unique. It was built and unveiled in the town in 2002. It also has a Big Prawn, which was built and unveiled in 2005. Both were built by local resident Brian Paskins. The unnamed Western King Prawn weighs 2000 kg (4410 lbs) and stands 7 m (22 ft) tall.

There is also a Big Prawn at Ballina which is bigger (9m, 35 tonnes) than the Exmouth Big Prawn. However, in an ongoing Prawn War, Exmouth residents claim theirs is "much more realistic".