This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
Site-level location · 15.5739° S, 133.2148° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Larrimah has a population of about twenty-seven people and more landmarks than that.
The Yangman people inhabited this region for over 40,000 years before European settlement and associate the landscape of Larrimah with the Dreaming tracks of the Storm Bird, the channel-billed cuckoo, which they hold helped shape the land. The town itself was established in 1940 as the southern terminus of the North Australia Railway, and during the Second World War it became a significant military hub – a staging point for troops and supplies, with the nearby Gorrie Airfield built during the war. The Larrimah Museum now occupies the heritage-listed 1942 Telephone Repeater Station and Powerhouse buildings that served that network.
The giant stubbie belongs to the Larrimah Hotel, and the pub's own account of its decorations is worth having. In the 1960s a puddle formed out the front, grew, and became known as Larrimah Lake; with the pub busy on railway and trucking traffic, the publican of the day sat a giant pink panther on its edge. The habit of putting oversized things outside stuck, and the stubbie is the largest survivor of it.
Roper Gulf Regional Council currently describes the hotel as known for its giant stubby, which is unusually direct local-government confirmation that the landmark is part of the town's identity.
A giant beer bottle outside a pub is ordinarily the least surprising object in Australia. Here it is doing something harder: holding the attention of travellers on the Stuart Highway for a settlement that has a railway terminus that no longer runs, an airfield that no longer flies and a population you could fit in a minibus.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Roper Gulf Regional Council currently describes the Larrimah Hotel as known for its giant stubby, giving strong local-government confirmation that the landmark remains part of the town’s identity.
ACCESS
Navigate to Larrimah Hotel. The current operator explicitly promotes the giant stubby and provides established visitor, camping and rest facilities.
