This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
28.64015° S, 153.00018° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Sixteen tonnes of concrete turkey, two hundred millimetres thick, built by a local couple.
John and Chrystine Graham made the Big Bush Turkey, and NSW Government records the specifications precisely: sixteen tonnes, 8.5 metres wide, four metres high, with walls two hundred millimetres thick. It stands beside Summerland Way, 2.6 kilometres south of the Kyogle Visitor Information Centre, and a November 2023 photograph carries embedded GPS confirming the position.
Those numbers describe something closer to civil engineering than sculpture. Two hundred millimetres of reinforced concrete is structural wall thickness, and sixteen tonnes on a highway verge requires footings. This is not a fibreglass shell – it is a small building in the shape of a bird.
The subject is well judged and slightly cheeky. Australian brush-turkeys are large black mound-building birds that have become genuinely notorious in northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland, where they rake entire gardens into breeding mounds and are essentially impossible to deter. A district that put up a sixteen-tonne monument to the animal most likely to destroy a suburban vegetable patch has a sense of humour about it.
They are also remarkable birds. The male builds and tends an enormous compost mound, regulating its temperature by adding and removing material, and the chicks dig their way out and are independent from the moment they emerge.
Kyogle sits in the Northern Rivers below the border ranges, and Summerland Way carries traffic north toward Queensland.
The decade it belongs to remain blank.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
NSW Government confirms the Big Bush Turkey on Summerland Way 2.6 km south of Kyogle Visitor Information Centre. A November 2023 Wikimedia photograph carries embedded GPS at -28.640150, 153.000183, independently validating the object position.
ACCESS
The Big Bush Turkey is a current NSW-promoted roadside attraction on Summerland Way south of Kyogle. Its object position is independently supported, but no lawful off-road public parking/pull-off has been verified. A 2023 photographer coordinate and visitor reports of pulling over describe behaviour, not parking legality, and nearby private-business parking must not be assumed available. Do not stop in a traffic lane or on an unsafe shoulder; direct navigation remains withheld.
Photo taken 25 November 2023 includes embedded camera GPS at -28.640150, 153.000183, closely matching the existing site point and supporting exact object geometry.
Community
What we're still checking
A safe legal parking or pull-off point for visiting the Big Bush Turkey has not yet been verified.
Something not right?
If this Big Thing has changed, moved or gone, telling us keeps the guide honest for the next traveller.
