This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
Site-level location · 24.4712° S, 150.1286° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
The town of Banana is named after a bullock, and the bullock was named after a banana.
That is the whole thing, and it is worth unpacking because the assumption is so persistent. Banana in Central Queensland has no connection to fruit growing whatsoever. It was most likely named after a working bullock called Banana – owned by a teamster, a stockman or a station owner depending on who you ask – whose name is usually attributed to his dun-coloured coat. A 1973 history, Banana Past and Present, offers a rather better explanation: that his tongue hung out like a ripe banana when he was working.
He became so associated with the place that when the station property was gazetted in 1855 it was named Banana Station. The town, and eventually the Shire of Banana – a local government area spanning much of Central Queensland – took the name from there. The shire's administrative centre later moved to Biloela, but the name endured.
Colonial settlement here began with three Scottish brothers, James, Norman and Charles Leith-Hay, who came from the Darling Downs and squatted on land they named Rannes after their family home in Aberdeenshire. Banana Station began as an outpost of it.
The yellow statue commemorates the animal. Monument Australia describes it as a life-size sculpture of a large yellow-coloured lead bullock, with a plaque donated by the Banana Shire Historical Society – so this record treats it as a related landmark rather than a deliberately oversized object.
The locality recorded 348 people at the 2021 census.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Current RACQ and State Library material group Banana the Bullock with Queensland’s Big Things, but monument documentation describes it as a life-size commemorative sculpture rather than a deliberately oversized object. It is therefore retained as a related Big Things landmark rather than core.
ACCESS
Public town monument beside the Dawson Highway in central Banana. OpenStreetMap independently maps public street-side parking beside a mapped rest area at the Banana Hall community precinct (-24.47097, 150.12916), about 60 m east of the monument. Navigate to that parking and walk to the monument; the point is a mapped parking feature, not a bay centroid. Do not stop on the highway beside the statue.
OpenStreetMap highway=rest_area node at -24.47102, 150.129168 adjacent to the Banana Hall parking; supports that the parking is a public stopping place.
OpenStreetMap node 11966245894 (amenity=parking, parking=street_side) at -24.470968, 150.129157, about 60 m east of the mapped 'Banana the Bull' monument node; used as the map-checked arrival.
