The Big Yabby

Fords Bridge, New South Wales, Australia

Roadside giants

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Current

Checked by Project Big Things · Sep 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

A giant yabby installed in Fords Bridge in 2020, celebrating the Warrego River area's yabbying tradition.

Before you stop

Remote outback location -- ensure adequate fuel/water before travelling; check for flooding/road-closure conditions on unsealed approach roads in wet weather.

Roadside pull-off
P
Parking
onsite

Private to your Passport.

PLAN YOUR VISIT

Recommended arrival available

Roadside pullout

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The Big Yabby

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

29.75258° S, 145.42478° E

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Fords Bridge is a very small place on the Warrego River north-west of Bourke, and in 2020 it acquired a giant yabby.

The subject is entirely local. Yabbies are freshwater crayfish that live in the muddy inland rivers and dams of eastern Australia, surviving drought by burrowing deep and waiting, and the Warrego country around Fords Bridge has a long-standing reputation for them. Yabbying – a piece of string, a bit of meat, a bucket – is one of those activities that is simultaneously a childhood memory, a food source and a genuine local tradition out here.

Bourke Shire records show the tourist-attraction installation on Aubrey Street was approved in 2020, and NSW Government and Back O' Bourke tourism material both promote it, with provision made for coaches as well as cars.

That last detail says something. A settlement of this size does not plan for tour coaches casually – it indicates a deliberate attempt to get tour buses to stop in a town they would otherwise pass through, and the yabby is the reason offered. NSW Government material notes it has attracted many travellers to the small but mighty town, which is exactly the outcome intended.

This is the Big Thing tradition still working as originally conceived: a very small community with no other lever, building one memorable object to make the through-traffic stop. Most of the famous examples date from the 1960s and 70s. This one is from 2020, and the logic has not changed at all.

Fords Bridge itself has a pub, a handful of houses and not much else. That a settlement of that size can put up a sculpture and get itself listed by two tourism bodies says something about how little it takes, and how much organising it still requires.

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PRACTICAL

Plan your stop

WHAT TO EXPECT

NSW Government and Back O’ Bourke confirm the Big Yabby as a current free attraction in Fords Bridge, with car and coach parking among the listed facilities. Bourke Shire’s 2020 approval places the installation on Aubrey Street. The exact object is map-checked, while the parking point remains unresolved.

ACCESS

The Big Yabby stands on Aubrey Street in the small hamlet of Fords Bridge. NSW Government and tourism listings confirm car and coach parking is available on-site, but as a tiny one-road rural settlement this is informal roadside parking directly beside the sculpture rather than a separately-mapped lot; visitors can safely drive to and park at the sculpture's own (already map-checked) coordinates.

COMMUNITY

Visitor Log

WHAT'S NEXT

Find another Big Thing nearby

A life-size bronze Diprotodon sculpture in central Eulo, celebrating the remarkable concentration of megafauna fossils discovered in the district.

Animals and creatures

181 km away

TRANSPARENCY

Sources & research

Back O' Bourke – The Big Yabby

Bourke Shire / Back O' Bourke · recorded 2026-08-22

Tourism

Bourke Shire Council – October 2020 business paper

Bourke Shire Council · recorded 2026-08-22

Government

NSW Government – Big Yabby

NSW Government · recorded 2026-09-11

Government

What we're still checking

Open-licence image search completed 24 August 2026. No defensible reusable image with file-level commercial-use provenance was verified in the completed Commons, government/open-licence and archival/open-collection sweep.

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