#93 - Visit The Big Pineapple and #94 - Visit Ettamogah Pub

Global Financial Crisis or GFC as a substitute or weakened version of calling the current 'economic tough times' a recession is as effective as calling a spade a shovel.  We all know it's a spade, why don't we just call it a spade?  And what's with the pack of cards reference?  When the Global Financial Crisis is finally over, and the pendulum swings again in favour of economic not-so-tough times are we going to refer to the state of the economy as hearts?  Diamonds?  No.  More likely we'll just say it's ace, and rightly so.  Not so ace is the closure of the Sunshine Plantation aka The Big Pineapple on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.  It went into receivership in 2009, however enjoyed many years of success as a tourist attraction after it was opened in August 1971. 

I don't recall the first time I went there, as a youngster with my family.  I was too young, naive and inexperienced to appreciate the kitsch candour of Pineapple: Big.  As an adult I was looking forward to pinapple this and that.  Pineapple pencils, pineapple stickers, pineapple coffee, pineapple post-its, other pineappley tacky tourist tidbits and of course pineapple lumps.  Not to be.  Oh well.  Just one thing though, why is the Big Pineapple website still up and running??  It's false advertising man and now that I know about it, I want to ride on the Nutmobile!!!  The website also boasts of leisure wear.  Does that mean pineapple yellow velour tracksuits in anyone else's book?? 

Next stop on this road trip was Ettamogah Pub.  It really should change its name to Ettabogan Pub.  Check out their car park:

There was beer guts and goatees everywhere!... and that was just the women.  This place was swarming with wall to wall bogans of every description and yes, there are bogan sub-cultures within bogan sub-cultures.  These were your Car Enthusiast Bogans.  Also present, Biker Bogans.  I dare not photograph them though.  Not unless I was willing to get my norks out.  They probably haven't seen fully clothed women in a long time, what between the topless bars and the wet t-shirt competitions.  I'm sure that if I requested a photo the response would have resulted in polite gentry tete-a-tete, such as "sure luv, just show us yer tits", which is bogan for "sure luv, just show us yer tits".  Bogans are known for calling a spade a fu*ckin' spade, unlike ill-named Global Fried Chicken in the example above.


With beer in hand we're on the verandah upstairs when the car club collectively decided to call it quits and revved up their engines. A number of clientele peered curiously over the verandah at the ruckus below.  I entertained myself with the decor de la bogue.  The sign on the ladies - sorry, I should say 'sheilas' -  proudly displayed its extensive vocabulary with half a dozen names for 'toilet' including but not limited to: thunderbox and dunny.  Classy.


Why must we resort to the cringe-worthy stereotypes of Australians like the blue singlet wearing, beer-guzzling larrikin type for a laugh when Australians are, by definition so much more diverse?  Ocker culture, thankfully appears to be fading, lost in the blend of more interesting, substantial cultures, replaced with a broader sense of 'Australian'.  Naturally, our 'Australian-ness' has earned us a reputation on the world stage and is one of the reasons why visitors have selected Australia as a preferred destination both temporarily and permanently.  The Ettamogah pub embodies its fair share of Australia that international visitors come to see and the novelty hasn't worn off.  Yet.   

I'm left wondering if the tourist icon, once basking in its splendour will suffer the same fate as the Big Pineapple as the world grows weary of crocodiles, koalas and cans of Fosters.