This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
Site-level location · 34.3112° S, 148.2962° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
A pair, on a single stem, which is how cherries actually come.
That detail is the design decision worth noticing. Most giant fruit in this catalogue is singular – one apple, one orange, one banana – because a single object is simpler to build and reads faster from the road. Cherries are almost never seen alone, and reproducing the joined pair keeps the fruit recognisable in a way one cherry on its own would not manage, since a lone red sphere could be almost anything.
NSW Government and Visit Hilltops confirm the Big Cherries at 34 Main Street, in front of the Young and Hilltops Visitor Information Centre.
Young calls itself the cherry capital of Australia and has the industry to support it. The district's altitude and cold winters suit the crop, the orchards around the town supply a substantial share of the national market, and the National Cherry Festival has run here since the 1950s – one of the longest-running produce festivals in the country.
The town's history is not only agricultural. The Lambing Flat riots of 1860 and 1861 took place here: sustained violent attacks by European miners on Chinese goldminers, which led directly to colonial legislation restricting Chinese immigration and formed part of the groundwork for the White Australia policy. Young was renamed from Lambing Flat shortly afterwards. It is one of the more consequential episodes in nineteenth-century Australia, and it happened where the cherries now stand.
The fruit's maker and installation date are not recorded.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
