Big Submarine

Australia is full of 'big things'. If you want a full and comprehensive list you can click here. Essentially if you’ve got a café, restaurant or small town in Australia that’s not doing too well financially then you crack out the wood and papermache and build yourself a giant banana, guitar, fish, pineapple etc and the people will flock from miles around to see it.

I’ve managed to see a few ‘big things’ during my time here, but at some point will have to plan an extensive Australia-wide tour in order to see every giant lobster, strawberry and penguin that the country has to offer.

Holbrook on the Hume highway doesn’t exactly have a ‘big thing’, in its truest sense. It does have a submarine though. It’s remarkable that there’s absolute no nautical or naval link to the town at all, it just appears that the town secured a decommissioned submarine in 1995 from the Australian Royal Navy in the hope that passers by would stop off for a cup of tea rather than zoom up the Hume Highway.

I actually feel that their plan was a bit ill conceived as the town is due to be by-passed in 2012, and I'm slightly dubious about whether the sight of a grounded submarine will be enough to make people pull off the new highway. Anyway here's a picture I took on Saturday morning.