Copyright © Tanya Piejus, 2002

There are big things in life like giving up a trendy new media job with the BBC, selling a London flat and leaving home for adventures overseas. And there are Big Things in Australia like monster concrete merinos, colossal fibreglass crustaceans and outsized oranges made of steel. I have an inexplicable love for all things tacky so when I decided to go travelling, it seemed logical to combine the two.

Armed with a yellow highlighter, I planned my route on a map of Australia to take in as many of the Big Things as possible on public transport and by bicycle. Since I arrived in February I've done pretty well. My first Big Thing was the World's Largest Merino in Goulburn, NSW which took a two-hour train journey from Sydney and a short bike ride to reach. I had to pass on the Big Cheese of Bega as I had no sensible way to get there, but the Big Ned Kelly at Glenrowan was reachable from Melbourne, again by train and bike. The Giant Murray Cod, originally a prop for a film, took a five-hour train and coach trip plus an overnight stay in Swan Hill.

Tasmania only has one Big Thing, a six-foot penguin, but it is appropriately situated in a town called Penguin. Naturally, I wanted to go there but was again thwarted by a lack of convenient transport and sadly had to cross it off my list. Easiest of them all was the Big Lobster in Kingston SE, just over the South Australia border. I'm travelling with Oz Experience and the buses make a scheduled stop there so we all got to meet Larry, as it's otherwise known. I went on the excellent Groovy Grape tour of the Barossa Valley to see the Big Rocking Horse of Gumerache. Next stop was a special request to the Oz bus driver which got me to the Big Cornish Miner in the historic town of Kapunda. My most recent visit was to the Big Winch in Coober Pedy, also on the Oz Experience route. You may question my sanity in going to such lengths to see these huge man-made, inanimate objects but the problem with Australia is that it's so big itself, how do you choose which bits to see? The Big Things have given me a reason to visit some interesting and beautiful places away from the usual backpacker trail that I wouldn't have gone to otherwise.

I met a like-minded lady at the Big Orange in Berri in the lovely Murray Riverlands. She had an almost-complete list of all the Big Things, which I'd been lacking. I discovered to my horror that I've missed heaps in Victoria within easy reach that I hadn't even known were there. How could I have missed the Giant Golf Ball so near Melbourne or the Big Koala in the Grampians? Oh well, I'll just have to come back to Australia again, won't I?

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