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!
Hear ye, hear ye! ‘Tis I, Sir Bigs-a-Lot of Kingdom Bardot, and I doth welcome thee to a time when fearless warriors and ferocious dragons roamed the landscape of northern New South Wales. Please pop on ye olde face mask, as ’tis a spot of bubonic plague around – tee hee!
Just kidding, I’m really your friend Bigs Bardot, and it’s knights for you to join me as I share some kind swords regarding this 6.5-metre nobleman. The Big Knight’s been protecting the good folk of the Macadamia Castle since 1985 and, despite looking a bit scary at first lance, is one of the most pleasant fellows I’ve ever hel-met.
Indeed, you won’t find armour wonderful chap!
A quick note: The Big Knight was, shamefully, removed in early-2023. He has been purchased by the friendly folk at the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House, and I’ll let you all know when he’s been installed. The crux of this entry has been left unchanged, to allow us all to step back to a simpler, more whimsical time. Namaste.
Lord of the Sword
The Knight, as he’s officially known, is the creation of local botanist Ken McDonald, who long ran a plant stand at the castle and dreamed of selling more seeds to tourists. He set to work designing a dapper dude of enormous proportions, basing him on a suit of armour on display in the castle.
“I just measured everything and drew it up, then multiplied it by three,” Ken explained in the official history of the castle. “First thing I did was build a big rotating spit, just like you’d use to cook a pig. That way I could build the Knight’s frame onto it and rotate it around as I applied the fibreglass.”
Ken used steel pipes for the frame and flat steel strips for the Knight’s robust body. He had a little trouble balancing himself (the Knight, that is, not Ken), so the sword and lance were reinforced to keep him upright.
Lennox Head luminary and surfboard shaping superstar Bob McTavish was tasked with applying the intricate fibreglass details to the Knight – and was forced to come up with some creative solutions to complete the job.
“For the head, we went shopping in Ballina to find just the right sized beach ball, inflated it and coated it with resin,” jabbered Bob. “When it set, we deflated it and kept on adding more and more layers for strength.”
Boogie Knights
After three months of tireless work, the 6.5-metre-tall gentleman was unveiled to a delighted public. He was originally adorned with white armour and a red cross, which were added by local artist Mark Waller.
“It was supposed to be St George, you see,” Ken declared, “and I’ve always had this dream of building a dragon to lie down at his feet.”
It’ll be a maca-damn-ia shame if that doesn’t happen!
The Knight’s home has been through a number of owners and names over the years, and these days the Macadamia Castle is definitely worth taking a pecan at, with putt-putt golf, a small zoo, a salubrious cafe and sprawling shopping options. I enjoyed dropping my tough guy facade for a few moments to show off my inner Maid Marian in the gift shop. A Round Table discussion decided I looked delightful!
Those on a road trip along that NSW North Coast are often left ponder whether the Big Knight could defeat the nearby Big Prawn in a battle but honestly, our beautiful Bigs are peaceful beings, so you’d have to be medi-evil to contemplate that!
A Hard Day’s Knight
The Knight’s debonair swagger and pensive masculinity, though inspirational, have not been enough to stave off the threat of image-obsessed millennials. The new owners of the Castle – who have transformed it into some sort of petting zoo – saw little value in his history, bravery and importance to the community, and so tore him down in early 2023.
A hero to millions and an integral thread in the fabric of Knockrow, he was knocked down in the name of progress. The Knight’s muscular legs were smashed to bits, and he was dragged through the dirt like a filthy commoner. The good people of Knockrow wept as one. They’d lost their inspiration. Many turned to narcotics to fill the void.
Thankfully, they are willing to sell what’s left of The Big Knight to the highest bidder. Not wanting to be gazumped, I put in an offer of $1.2 million to purchase the shiny hunk, hoping he’d spearhead my grandiose plans for a sprawling medieval-themed gentlemens club up the road in Binna Burra.
Sadly it seems my cheque was lost in the mail, because he was snapped up by the happy chappies at the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House. Ah well, maybe I’ll buy the Big Banana instead!
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!
I sure felt like a shrimp compared to this supersized sea creature! The princely prawn is one of the most famous and celebrated roadside attractions on the planet, and for good reason – he’s massive, looks fantastic, and has an unbelievable tale… or is that tail?
Actually, it’s both! When the Prawn first swam ashore back in 1989, he looked like a Big Fish had been nibbling on him, because his bottom bits were missing.
Financed by the legendary duo of Attila and Louis Mokany (the Big Thing gurus behind Goulburn’s Merino and Taree’s Oyster) and designed by South Australian sculptor James Martin, his top half rested on top of a service station. He was on a scale nobody antici-bait-ed, but as a child I was always a bit sad because he appeared unfinished.
Curiously, Martin wasn’t originally supposed to design the Prawn, with that honour bestowed upon Tony Colangelo, the legendary designer of the Big Oyster.
However when that project faced a series of delays, the Mokanys grabbed someone from the local art school. It’s an incredible series of events, because the Prawn turned out to be intricately detailed and possibly the most impressive Big of them all.
Q: What happened when this Big Thing went to the Olympics? A: He won a prawns medal!
At 27 metres tall and weighing 40 tonnes, the krill-iant construction was designed to be 30,000 times the size of a normal shrimp. He was a hit with holidaymakers, who lined up to explore his splendid insides, which held a museum dedicated to Ballina’s seafood industry, and allowed his friends to peer out his perspex eyeballs. The good times looked like they’d last forever but, tragically, disaster was on the horizon.
The Prawn’s service station was shuttered in 2010, leaving him trapped and alone, with his fans no longer to explore his sprawling innards. His paint faded badly and he started to rot away, leading some closed-minded people to call him an eyesore. It was a bad time for giant shrimp, with the other Big Prawn falling into disrepair at the same time.
As I drove by one afternoon during those bleak days, I was moved to tears when I discovered that a disgusting invertebrate had spraypainted a part of the male anatomy on the poor Prawn’s head.
I was absolutely appalled when I saw it, because I’d rather die than allow a Big Thing to experience a single moment of sadness.
Q: Where’s the best place to buy second-hand Big Thing souvenirs? A: A prawn shop!
For years it appeared this Big Thing would be prawn but not forgotten. Ballina Council voted to tear him down, and his legion of supporters held vigils as they counted down the days till his demise. And then, during the Prawn’s darkest hour, a miracle happened.
Hardware company Bunnings bought him with the intention of moving him to their new warehouse near the original Big Pineapple, at a cost of $400,000. They planned to repaint him and – most remarkable of all – finally give him a tail. You’ve never crusta-seen a celebration like the one in Ballina when it was announced.
The new design is simply magnificent, and I very much prefer it to his original look. It’s sad, of course, that visitors can no longer walk inside him, but it’s a small price to pay to have this mega mollusc back and better than ever. I just hope nobody tries to pop him on the Bunnings barbie!
And that, ladies and jellyfish, is the story of the king-sized crustacean who lost his way but found his tail, his home, and his smile.
