Tag: prawn

  • The Big Prawn, Tweed Heads, NSW

    The Big Prawn, Tweed Heads, New South Wales, Australia

    Liam Hemsworth. Luke Wilson. Dewey Schwarzenegger. Being the lesser-known brother of a beloved celebrity can be a heartbreaking struggle – just ask wannabe actor Bronson Pinchot (née Bardot), who will go to any lengths to step out of my shadow.

    And so it is for the Big Prawn at Tweed Heads, who will forever be compared to his much larger sibling in nearby Ballina. This surprisingly shrimpish shrimp, who measures around 1.5 metres from adorable antennule to upbeat uropod, can be found in front of the popular PKG Seafood restaurant. Come for the stylish shellfish, stay for the sprawling array of fresh and cooked ocean treats!

    As a connoisseur of anything plucked from the swirling brine and tossed into a vat of oil, I recommend the legendary Neptune Basket. Overflowing with calamari, fish pieces, hot chippies and, of course, prawn cutlets, it’s absolutely divine! There are no crab sticks, but you might be able to find some of those two minutes up the road.

    Best consumed whilst sprawled in the gutter beneath the Big Prawn, tartare sauce smeared across face, gazing in childlike wonder at the cantankerous crustacean.

    Nobody said tracking down Big Things was a glamorous pastime!

    Get off mah prawn, ya dang kids!

    If you’d like to slip yet another shrimp on the barbie, splash on over to Crangan Bay. There you’ll discover the remains of a ten-legged freak of immense proportions. Sadly, some badnik lopped off his head – and I’ll waste no time deveining the culprit when I catch him.

    Oh me, oh my, if we find any more Big Prawns we’ll have enough for a shrimp cocktail!

  • The Big Prawn, Crangan Bay, NSW

    The Big Prawn, Crangan bay, New South Wales, Australia

    BREAKING NEWS: It’s with a heavy heart that I announce the passing of the beautiful, whimsical Big Prawn. Our fearless friend was found dismembered on the morning of August 5, 2023, his head and legs sawn off by an angle grinder and stolen. Police believe they could turn up on the black market.

    Next time you pick up a bag of frozen prawns, please, please check if there’s a metre-long metal head and some sawn-off chelas in there. With some luck, we can put the Prawn back together before he’s smuggled out of the country.

    Don’t try to slip this shrimp on the barbie, because he’s uncookable! The Big Prawn was caught in furious bushfires in 2013, which saw everything around the durable decapod – including the service station he was perched in front of – burnt to a crisp.

    He now looks a little lonely by the side of the Old Pacific Highway in Lake Macquarie, surrounded by rubble and trapped behind an old fence. But wipe away those tears, because the future is bright for our fire-fighting friend, with a bidding war raging for his ownership.

    Controversy erupted in 2020 when nearby Central Coast Council made a play to buy the prawn to welcome visitors heading south – as Ploddy does to those coming up from Sydney.

    “People often say we don’t get any attention in the north,” Councillor Jillian Hogan told a concerned reporter from the ABC. “Well, the Big Prawn is a good way of getting some attention!”

    Don’t come the raw prawn!

    However, with Central Coast Council drowning in debt, the move looks unlikely – which is music to the ears of the prawn’s creator, local legend Shane Simpson. He designed the creature in 1991 at the behest of a popular fish-and-chip shop, and based his design on a huge crustacean shipped up from Tasmania especially for the project.

    “We’d love to see it stay in Lake Macquarie, only for the fact that every time I drive past I tell the grandkids I made it,” he exclaimed. “We made it with a fire-resistant resin, and it did its job – it didn’t melt!”

    Just like his big brother in Ballina, the Crangan Bay Prawn has scurried through the fire and found peace and contentment on the other side. He was recently joined by the Big Pine Cones in nearby Caves Beach, in what is fast becoming a hotbed for Big action. Ah, sorry for the insensitive wordplay, buddy!