Bowen's Big Mango goes missing

The Big Mango 'big thing' attraction at Bowen in North Queensland has gone missing overnight.

The 10 metre high fibreglass attraction was this morning discovered to have been removed from the concrete platform where it had sat for more than a decade by staff at the Bowen Tourist Information Centre.

Bowen Tourism Chairman Paul McLaughlin told AAP that he was baffled by the disappearance, stating "I thought she was joking to start off but she said 'no I'm serious'."

McLaughlin says the 10-metre-high structure was not scheduled for maintenance or transport and would require heavy machinery to move.

McLaughlin says Tourism Bowen has reported the incident to the police and they are reviewing security video footage recorded last night.

He added "I'm sure the public will help us find it but at this stage we are just on the early stages of looking at that footage."

The Big Mango was erected next to the Bowen Tourism Information Centre on the Bruce Highway in 2002.

Previously dismissed as tourist kitsch, Australia's 'Big Things, giant models of everything from bulls to bananas, are now being heritage-listed and recognised as works of folk art.

The sometimes gaudy structures, commissioned since the 1960s by country towns and coastal areas keen to attract tourists, have gathered respect as national icons in recent years.

In 2009, the Queensland Government placed the Sunshine Coast's Big Pineapple on its heritage register, ranking it among the Queensland's top historic buildings and cultural sites.

Author Bill Bryson, in his book 'Down Under' (published by Black Swan Books) wrote:

"One of the more cherishable peculiarities of Australians is that they like to build big things in the shape of other things.

"Give them a bale of chicken wire, some fibreglass and a couple of pots of paint and they will make you, say an enormous pineapple, strawberry or lobster.

"They then put a café and a gift shop inside, erect a big sign beside the highway (for the benefit of people whose acuity evidently does not extend to spotting a fifty-foot high piece of fruit standing beside an otherwise empty highway), then sit back and wait for the money to roll in."

Image shows Bowen's Big Mango before and after.

17th July 2012 - SURVEY REVEALS AUSTRALIA’S FAVOURITE ‘BIG THINGS’

15th July 2009 - CELEBRATING BIG THINGS