Bart Bear's Blog

Just north of Coffs Harbour is a tourist trap called the "Big Banana". Coffs is about the southern limit of commercial banana growing in Australia and the Big Banana has displays and tours that show you how it's done. You can take a ride around the banana plantation, and try selected banana goodies in the cafe. Now, Australia is very short of bananas at present. Most are grown in Queensland and a series of cyclones wiped last year's crop out, so Coffs bananas have skyrocketed in price. In fact, we couldn't find bananas to buy in Coffs, all of the crop is shipped to the cities as fast as it can be harvested. One of the displays is a huge banana with a strange critter hugging it. Blu and I had to climb up and see what was happening. Turns out that the Monkey and the banana are both plastic fakes. A pity, because I like small monkeys and would really love to have a banana this size to munch on.

Labels: climbing, New South Wales, north coast