Gimme fish head baby Gimme fish head like you did just last night Ah, ah, ah!
Even when Khancoban‘s a hundred degrees There you are smiling at me amongst the trees You stink in the sun, but are still fun With no body, you must be dead, are you dead? But I don’t care, I love you, Big Fish Head You’re a fish head You’re a fish head You’re a fish head
You have a swing beneath the bones of your back You let me hang there as I gobbled a snack You whisper sweet things, gimme greetings You are my bed, you are my bed But best of all, I love you, Big Fish Head You’re a fish head You’re a fish head You’re a fish head
So… Ah say you’ll never be crabbay Be lovely like the nearby Yabbay ’Cause I’ll come back to play another day!
Even when Khancoban’s a hundred degrees Each time we meet you are so eager to please You whisper sweet things, ’cos you’re a Big Thing Let’s go to bed, let’s go to bed! Because my dear, I love you, Big Fish Head You’re a fish head You’re a fish head You’re a fish head You’re a fish head You’re a fish head You’re a fish head The Big Fish Head
Howdy pardners, I’m Biggie the Kid, but you can go right ahead and call me the Kutest Kowboy in Khancoban. That’s KKK for short, although for some reason the locals get mighty worked up when I tell ’em that. Yee-haw!
Yours truly has been steppin’ out with the best-looking girl in the nearby village of Bringenbrong. Naw, not Mary-Sue Nowinski – she never has been the same since that horse kicked her in the head. I’m talkin’ about the incomparable Gabby the Yabby. Dagnabbit, she really is crabtivating!
Gabby moseyed on into downtown Bringenbrong in 2019, making her home by the banks of the river, yards from the New South Wales – Victoria border. Funnily enough she doesn’t own a TV set, despite having a couple of antennas.
Since then most of the town’s menfolk (and several of the womenfolk) have had a claws encounter with this dainty decopod. Cruel rumours have been spread that she has crabs, so I’d like to nip that in the bud.
We did the Lobster Mash
The cray-ative chaps at Agency of Sculpture (the Big Bogong Moth; the Big Wedge-Tailed Eagle) are responsible for Gabby’s seductive curves and feminine chelipeds. It’s enough to make this ol’ cowboy draw his pistol early, if you get my drift.
In a pinch, you can climb inside Gabby and use her as shell-ter but I gotta warn you, I’m the jealous type and liable to fill you with lead if that happens. Dance, boy, dance!
After careful lobstervation I’ve decided Gabby’s the most beautiful crawfish I’ve ever crusta-seen and I’m just cray-zy for her. It sounds like I’m tryin’ to butter her up, but dang me, it’s true.
Yes, Gabby’s the sort of girl who leaves you begging for mornay, but a simple warning ‘fore I ride off into the sunset – she can be a bit crabby sometimes!
Let me take you down ‘Cause I’m going to Big Strawberry Fields The size is real And something to be amazed about Big Strawberry Fields forever
Bright red and bursting with life, the Big Strawberry looks delicious enough to gobble up with a dollop of cream. But this blushing beauty is actually an unstoppable tough guy, having defeated a crazed cyclone in 2013.
The turbulent tempest tore through Koonoomoo with unabashed enthusiasm, destroying four homes and shattering 12 others. A camper van was tossed 40 metres onto its roof, and the village was left looking like a cantankerous toddler’s bedroom. But the brawny Strawberry, long a source of inspiration for the townsfolk, stood tall against the wild winds.
When survivors emerged, cowering, from the rubble, they saw their beloved Strawberry standing proudly in the gathering sunlight. Everything will be alright, he seemed to say, and the rebuilding process began. Since that day, not a single deranged downpour has dared darken the doorways of Koonoomoo.
The cardinal cutie is one of the most straw-some Bigs the world has ever known. He’s shiny, delightfully textured, and very accessible. Fans can get up close and personal for a memorable and life-affirming photograph with the striking strawberry, and there’s even a deliciously retro sign with a hole to pop your happy little face through for the perfect holiday snap.
Something new for Koonamoo
The juicy giant started life in 2004, when Michael and Lorraine Hayes (along with their son Darren, the current owner) witnessed the popularity of the nearby Big Murray Cod and Big Cherry and decided to get in on the oversized action.
It was a community effort to raise the six-metre-tall, five-metre-wide icon, with Cobram Plumbing bringing the steel frame and local workers preparing the mesh. The oar-some blokes from Competition Kayaks put up the fiberglass, before Barry Dickson from Barry Dickson Paint and Panel went to town with his brushes.
Oh, and the scrumptious colour? Monza red, because Darren loves his Ford cars. I guess Fords are red, but I wouldn’t have a clue, I ride a scooter. I’ll paint my Big bright pink if Mum ever overcomes her aversion to having a ten-metre-tall concrete hamster in the front yard.
The adjacent store boasts Big Strawberry t-shirts, magnets and socks, along with a wide selection of chutneys and relishes. Slather some melon and pineapple marmalade on a chunk of home-baked damper and thank me afterwards.
Koonoomoo’s Big Strawberry really is one in vermilion. Even the Luddenham version doesn’t come close. I’d love to spend all day writing love ballads about this ruby rascal but honestly, I’m clutching at strawberries here.
Visitors to the river village of Tocumwal have been exclaiming this for almost six decades, and this water-dwelling dreamboat has lived a life most of us would be en-fish-ious of.
This bulky baby boomer’s story starts in the swingin’ 60s, when three of the more rebellious members of the local Chamber of Commerce decided the town needed something exciting to draw in tourists. They looked northward to Ploddy the Dinosaur, who was luring streams of Big-ficianados into Gosford, and a fish of epic proportions was soon on the carps… uh, sorry, make that the cards!
Big Thing visionaries Kathryn Moore, Alice Johnson and Lorna Nash held dozens of dances and sizzled sufficient sausages to raise the £3000 required to build the aquatic amigo. He was designed by Melbourne’s Duralite Company, and made from fiberglass with a steel skeleton. His outer details – such as his suave scrap metal fins – were lovingly added by volunteers and admirers.
The Big Murray Cod was o-fish-ially unveiled at a gala ceremony and quickly became a symbol of Berrigan Shire’s burgeoning counter-culture movement. His arrival ushered in a summer of love, with long-haired hippies, flower children, beatniks and other assorted delinquents rolling into Tocumwal to smack him right on the lips!
You’re carping on and on… When will this fin-ish?
The ’70s saw bell-bottom pants and safari suits find favour. But the Big Murray Cod wasn’t a slave to fashion and, aside from a few repaints, barely changed his look. Things took a grim turn in 1982, however, when the good people of Swan Hill, Victoria, erected a Giant Murray Cod of their own.
Bigger and fishier than the Tocumwal version, it was feared he’d hog all the glory. But the original still reels in the tourists – and there’s no de-baiting that!
Flannelette and a sullen attitude were the fish’s forte in the ’90s, and he was ahead of the tech curve by opening his own MySpace page in the 2000s. His family has since expanded to include Murray cods in St George and Tintaldra. The younger fish have grown up to be respected members of their communities, so obviously weren’t cod-dled as larvae.
This Big has settled down in recent years and is content, like most his age, to spend his days reading Aldi catalogues and preventing younger Bigs – such as the nearby Big Strawberry – from owning real estate. After so many years and such wild adventures, there are still a gill-ion reason to visit him, and it feels like Woodstock whenever one spends time with this fish.
It’s safe to say things are going swimmingly for the Big Murray Cod!
Please note: the plaque beneath this fish erroneously identifies him as the second oldest of the Bigs, but this honour actually belongs to the Big Banana, with Ploddy being the OG Big. Upon discovering this sickening glitch, I raced straight to the mayor’s office and was assured that the plaque would be corrected as a matter of urgency. I’m sorry, but there are some fins that I just can’t let go!
