And They Say Everything is Big in Texas - Welcome to Australia
Back in the 1980's Australia had an infinity with big things and none were bigger than this giant Rocking Horse located in Gumeracha, South Australia.
I remember visiting it as a child and was in awe of it's size, apparently I asked if it actually rocked, but that was probably just my active imagination wondering if we could rock off all the small people. Ha!
And yes you can actually climb to the top, although it's over 18 metres tall, so if you get vertigo then maybe just stop at the first level.
However, this site was established as a toy factory , and the Big Rocking Horse via a number of up-scaled iterations came later as a way to attract the gaze of passing motorists.
Now I must confess, I didn't go in this time, because last time I entered the Toy Shop my heart shrunk a little as my childhood memories of cool hand made toys were clouded by a number of 'Made in China' massed produced items sitting next to them.
It didn't sit well with me at the time, so I decided not to risk losing the last remaining images I have locked away of this great South Australia icon.
It appears they continue to produce handmade wooden toys at the factory, so perhaps I should have popped in for one last look. I might have been surprised and delighted, or not.
The Gumeracha Toy Factory also does factory tours during the week and these are typically aimed at school age children.
There's also a wildlife park onsite where you can get up and close with some of the local animals and some that aren't as local.
So the Gumeracha Toy Factory is definitely, worth the visit is you have small kids or are still a kid at heart and it's just down the road from the Birdswood National Motor Museum, which is another major draw card for motoring enthusiasts.
Fun Fact: The name Gumeracha was derived from an aboriginal word meaning 'fine waterhole' which in modern times still means somewhere to drink, like the pub.
So it seems like a good time to share Australia's other love.
Putting cars on poles.
Congratulations! Gumeracha I'm putting you on the map!
!steemitworldmap -34.821035 lat 138.891853 long Big Rocking Horse d3scr
Hey! Love this post! I've tried visiting as many of the big things in Australia as possible, but have yet to see the big rocking horse! It's definitely on my list now!
Thank you for sharing :)
If you have any photos of those Big Things, write a few words and post them under the 'bigthings' tag :-D I should have grabbed some photos of the Big Koala too as that's at least 4 storeys high :-D
I love the big rocking horse, we used to go there a lot when I was younger, and now that I have my own kids we take them every time we're in the area.
Both of our kids have a peacock feather from the wildlife park there.
I've done the climb to the top holding a 3 yr old a few times now.
Extra weight up them stairs. Nice :-D
Great post, one of our regular stops when we're out that way... but we still haven't posted about it yet.
...I'll have to get onto that...
Upvoted and Resteemed!
Thanks. I'm going to start a whole #bigthings series. :-D
Great post @just2random, brings back some memories out that way! Thanks for sharing!
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That's so cool!
Canada also has gigantic things/statues/figures, but this rocking horse would be awesome to take the kids to
Cool, you should take some pictures and add it to the #bigthings tag. I'm gonna start rocking it :-)
The tag that is :-P
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Hey great work @just2random, so many gems like this in the Adelaide Hills.
Indeed there are. Let's get more of them on the steemit worldmap :-D
yes for sure!