This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
19.87745° S, 147.68435° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Half of a pair, and the more locally justified half.
The watermelon stands beside the Big Pumpkin at a simple highway pull-off at Gumlu, and melons are the crop this stretch of the Burdekin is genuinely known for. Winter melons out of north Queensland supply southern markets when nothing else in the country is producing, and the trucks that pass the sculpture are frequently carrying exactly what it depicts.
A cut watermelon is also the best-designed subject in the produce category. The green rind, white pith and red flesh with black seeds make a three-colour target that reads at highway speed from a considerable distance, which is why watermelon landmarks turn up wherever the crop is grown – this catalogue holds another at a Melbourne produce market in Wantirna South.
The pairing with the pumpkin is what makes Gumlu unusual. Two crops presented together are a display of what the district produces rather than a single claim to fame, and the arrangement means neither object has to carry the whole town.
Gumlu is barely a town: highway, farms, and the melon sheds. The two sculptures constitute most of what a passing driver will ever see of it, which gives them a larger share of the place's public identity than almost any other objects in this catalogue.
The record does not carry the date, any attribution, the measurements or the material used. Whether the two were built together, or one followed the other, is likewise unestablished.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
A simple roadside Big Thing stop in a public/rest-area style pull-off beside the highway.
ACCESS
The Big Watermelon stands beside the Bruce Highway at Gumlu with the Big Pumpkin in a public rest-area setting. Use the researched off-highway stopping point and approach the sculptures on foot; do not stop in a live traffic lane.
