Rescuing the Big Potato

Australia is home to more than 150 “big things”, from the Big Prawn to the Big Merino. We meet Melanie Tait, heiress to NSW’s Big Potato, and learn how her family saved it from devastation.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you've ever clocked up some k's on one of
Australia's Great highways, you've probably passed something well larger than
you'd expect. There are more than one hundred and fifty
big landmarks across the country, from Goldban's Big Marino to
the Big Trout in the Snowy Mountains. Kayama even has
the Big Pooh. But have you ever wondered what it's

(00:22):
like to own one? I'm Amanda Keller and this is
Big Brain fuel Great Ossi Stories from the Road fueled
by Ampole, Australia's own. Some of these roadside attractions have
pretty good stories behind them. The twenty five ton Big
Rocking Horse started out as a five meter wooden giraffe

(00:44):
before being replaced by a series of ever larger and
more impressive rocking horses and bowin a Shire council voted
to allow the demolition of the Big Prawn, but it
was saved by a hardware store you probably know. Then
there's the Big Potato.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Hi. I'm Melanie Tate and I'm the heiress to the
Big Potato in Robertson. It's really big. It's an actual
big potato. It's how I describe it to anybody who
hasn't been there before is it's about as big as
the trailer of a road train.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Robbo in the southern Highlands of New South Wales is
a proud farming town. In nineteen seventy seven, local potato
farmer Jim Major had a brain wave he would build
a giant spud to showcase the guts and tenacity of
the local community. So he did a huge potato ten
meters high and four meters wide. But how do you

(01:41):
come to own such an iconic part of Australian history.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
So my parents are small business people in Robertson. They
moved to the town in nineteen eighty five when they
bought the pub, and then a few years later they
made a small supermarket out of the service station that
been used for years and right next go to that
service station was the Big Potato. And about five or

(02:07):
ten years ago it looked as though the Big Potato
was going to be leveled at a car park would
be put in to put a supermarket next door to it,
so there would be two competing supermarkets on both sides
of the Big Potato, and the town is just too
small to sustain that. And my dad got really worried
that it would just put everybody out of business, so

(02:29):
he got a mortgage and he bought the Big Potato
so that nobody could level it and put a literal
parking lot in there.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Melanie grew up around the spud watching as it became
an integral part of the town's culture and community.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
The Big Potato was kind of like a ground zero
as we were growing up for all sorts of things,
like you'd meet at the Big Potato, or you'd hang
out behind the Big Potato, or you'd try and get
into the Big Potato. There were all sorts of things
going on around it when I was growing up. But yeah,
it's just ever present part of the town and my

(03:05):
life growing up there.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
At one point it even got a facelift featuring eyes,
a pink nose, a mustache, and a smiley mouth, but
that was eventually painted over.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
I think somebody just last weekend put a lawn mower
on the top of it. But the thing is, because
it was across from the park, people would go in
there and they would we in there, or they'd spew
in there, so it was a pretty disgusting place inside.
And Jim Major, the man who created it and owned
it before my parents. He actually cemented the doors up

(03:37):
that there wouldn't be any more sort of gross behavior
going on inside it.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yes, we can all be grateful that the Big Potato,
this great icon of Ossie life, was saved from the
jaws of demolition and will be enjoyed by generations to
come from exploring a giant spada or whatever your journey
ample is, the fuel gets you there, make sure you
follow our adventures for free in your favorite podcast app.

(04:05):
I'm Amanda Kella and this is brain Fuel.