Big watermelon pips big peanut to become Australia’s next big thing

Queensland town of Chinchilla wins four-tonne melon structure as neighbouring Kingaroy vows to build giant nut anyway

A campaign to build a Big Peanut in Queensland has humbly accepted its loss to a Big Melon in a competition to find Australia’s next Big Thing.

The Queensland town of Kingaroy offered its congratulations to the nearby town of Chinchilla – known as the “melon capital of Australia” – after it became the proud owner of the four-tonne, nine metre-long watermelon on Wednesday.

Australia’s Big Things – oversized renderings of sheep, cows, fruit, vegetables and other objects – are a staple of regional tourism, and this year four towns vied to win a competition to build a new Big Thing, organised by booking company Wotif.

Kristy Board from the group Kingaroy Needs a Big Peanut, told Guardian Australia they were disappointed to lose, but were glad the Big Melon had won.

“If we were to come second to anyone, we were hoping it would be the Big Watermelon,” she said. “They are our neighbours, they are in Queensland. They are our rural sisters basically.”

And despite the narrow loss, she said Kingaroy’s “peanut collective” would press ahead and build the giant nut anyway.

“We had this planned out and have been running this campaign for some time now. Whilst we missed out, it doesn’t mean the Big Peanut won’t go ahead.”

The towns, which are only 150km apart, have a long history with their respective produce.

In Chinchilla, the Big Melon was unveiled on Wednesday morning before an enthusiastic crowd. The fibreglass structure was built in Sydney over five weeks and delivered to Queensland on Tuesday.

The mayor of Western Downs regional council, Paul McVeigh, basked in his town’s win and said it would bring tourists to Chinchilla, which is 300km west of Brisbane and has a population of 6,600.

“We nearly blocked the streets of the main highway in Chinchilla with the crowd that turned up,” he told Guardian Australia.

The council plans to make the Big Melon the centrepiece of their biannual watermelon festival, which has run for 25 years.

“Twenty-five years ago, when the first watermelons were grown in Chinchilla, the town was supplying 25% of the Australian crop of watermelons,” McVeigh said. “Whilst the industry has declined a little bit, the watermelon festival has grown and is now an international event.”

He extended his condolences to Kingaroy and the other finalists: a Big Kilt in Glen Innes and a Big Tulip in Mittagong, both in New South Wales.

“I’ve spoken to the mayor of South Burnett. They were chasing the Big Peanut. We’re very happy to win, and it will improve tourism in our region, but the tourism industry is a big industry and I’m sure people will be travelling through our neighbouring shires to visit the Big Melon, so we’ll be sharing those opportunities together.”

Kristy Board from Kingaroy agreed, saying she was “thrilled” for Chinchilla, and promised the Big Peanut would soon rise to match it.

The campaign already has a funding grant, a location (the local bowls club) and a near-finalised design that would be “visually more spectacular than any of the other big things in Queensland”, she said.

“For over 50 years people have tried to get a Big Peanut without any success. It’s ridiculous it’s taken 50 years. We are the peanut capital of Australia and we don’t have a Big Peanut.

“The design is not laying on its side, not standing directly up and down; the concept we have got drawn up at the moment is it on an angle. We’ve got a few other creative ideas as well – I’m not sure how much I want to give away just yet.”

Board said the completed peanut would be a monument to Kingaroy’s past.

“We’ve got a rich history of peanut farming in the South Burnett. Our beautiful red soils grow peanuts better than anyone. A lot of people made the comment that peanuts are our history and not where we as a region are moving forward, but it is a history that needs to be remembered. It’s a salute to peanut farmers of days gone by.”

The town, population 10,000, was the first place in Australia where commercial peanuts were planted, and is the hometown of former Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen, who worked on his family’s peanut farm as a young man.

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