We are right here, right in front of the Big Banana! As you have probably realised by now, I am terribly excited because I am extremely fond of Bananas, being a monkey and all, so I feel like this landmark was made for me.
After visiting Disney World, I am expecting to be a bit disappointed. But it will be fun anyway. We are waiting in the queue, second in line. I can’t wait! I hope this one is super, super, super fun, because it’s the last place we’re going to see. Anyway, Fen and James are paying for our admission and for all-day passes, and Jacob and his parents are right behind us.
As we are waiting for Jonah and his owners to finish up at the admission desk, I look around. This looks like fun! I can’t wait to go to the water-park area, because we haven’t been to a water-park yet in this trip.
Fen and James are discussing what we should do first with Jacob's parents, all the kids are staring at the park, and Jonah and I are hungry.
So Fen and James let us get something to eat at the 'go bananas café', and then we start at the toboggans. It’s so cool, because you can control your speed and everything. So now I am hopping into my little carriage thingy. It’s not like a roller coaster because there is one wagon at a time on the ride. Ok, they’ve pressed start, and now I am slowly riding towards a bridge. As soon as I start to go over the bridge, I crank the lever up to the fastest possible, and off I go. Whoa, I’m going really fast now, AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
When the ride finishes, and everyone else has finished their turn we go on to explore the rest of the water park. I am pretty excited about the massive banana slip waterslide, apparently it is three stories’ tall, and is super fun.
Me, Jonah, Tianna, and Jacob are lining up in the queue, and there is a little girl with a bunny rabbit toy. The little girl is about nine, and the bunny in her hands is in a billabong sun hat, and a swimsuit. Jonah says, “Pst,” to the bunny, “Having fun?” She nods her head, and says, “What do mean? Is that a question?” This park is more than fun; it’s super, duper, electric pooper awesome!”
Jonah tells her she’s seen nothing compared to Disney world, but she doesn’t care, she just slides down the slide and lines up again, and again, and again! We have so much fun riding up and down the waterslide.
We spend the whole morning until lunch at the waterpark, and it is really cool, just chilling out at the café, talking to Jonah and the bunny. We learn that her name is Cuddle Bunny, which Jonah and I don’t think suits her, because she is quite feisty and stubborn. The only bad bit of eating lunch at the big banana café, is that the tour guides has arrived, and sits down right next to me!
“In 1964, John Landy wanted something to make passing traffic stop at his road side banana stall. He had already heard of the “Big Pineapple” in Hawaii, and thought that something that big would definately stop traffic. With assistance of 1500 pounds and local engineer, Alan Chapman, set about designing the giant banana by cutting the best looking regular banana he could find into 40 pieces and developing plans from which builders could work from. Builder Alan Harvey started the construction in September 1964 with the work to be completed before Christmas.”
“The biggest banana in the world was officially opened on December 22 that year.”
“Not long after John Enevoldson joined as a partner and they expanded with 20 more plantation acres, a shop, café and a larger car park. In 1968 John retired and sold his share to Alan who continued building the business until 1988 when it was sold to a Horticulture World, which was part owned by local businessman Bob Johnston. Bob continued expanding the Big Banana into an educational showcase before undergoing a $30 million redevelopment that re-opened in June 1989.”
After a great lunch, with horrible entertainment (aka, the tour guides), we decide to go to the ice-rink. We hire some boots and set to work putting them on all the other kids before ourselves. Then we make our way to the ice-rink with only two kids falling over. We spend some time skating and playing tigi, and listening to annoying tour guides. “Disaster struck and 12 months later the Big Banana and went into provisional liquidation, though still trading until Mr. Kevin Ruby seeing huge potential in the complex purchased it in 1993.”
“The Big Banana now boasts a café, gift and souvenir shop, Candy Kitchen, Puppet Shop, Sunset Lakes Nursery, Banana Splits Ice-Rink (where we re now), Wild Toboggan Ride, Trike rides, and the two newest attractions “The World of Bananas” multimedia theater experience and “The Banana Slip” Australia’s first 3 story high inflatable waterslide. The Big Banana “It’s a whole Bunch of Fun!”
We skate for a while longer and then pack up to get to the World of Bananas. Apparently it starts where you enter a theatre and “go back in time. Then you go into another room, where there is a stage, with a whole lot of random 'thingies' there, and projectors are used to make it seem as though there are people there, interacting with the 'thingies'. Then there is a guided tour of the plantation walk, after which we arrive at the re-established Packing Shed and see where the fruit is prepared for marketing. Then finally, we will go into the games room with interactive and fun displays.
So that’s exactly what happens. We go into Theatre 1, where we travel around the world and back in time, and I sit next to Cuddle Bunny and Jonah, and we talk quietly throughout the whole thing.
Then we are guided to theatre 2, to watch the use and value of bananas, while those projected characters walk around talking and interacting with the random pieces of furniture.
When we finish that, a guide takes us on a short plantation walk to the Packing Shed.
And then we finally are allowed into the games hall! We have loads of fun pretending to wear a tropical fruit hat and mucking around playing the games.
Next, we visit the Candy Kitchen, and learn that the Candy Kitchen makes, on average, more than 90 kilos of sweets a day! We each get to choose one or two things and Fen and James buy one or two packs of lollies for later.
Then we arrive at Puppet People, where we have fun looking at puppets, and even buying a few. My favourite one is a cartoon monkey who is holding a big banana.
Next we look at the Sunset Lakes Nursery, which the kids seem to find terribly boring because we are just looking at plants most of the time.
But then we excitedly hop into a three passenger trike (a motorized tri-cycle) and Jonah, Cuddle Bunny and I, all ride the trikes, sitting on our owners laps, and enjoying the view, while the driver zooms us around the park.
Then we stop at the Going Bananas Café & Gift Shop. We look at the souveniors first, so as not to get sticky fingers from the food all over the stuff. I spy a stuffed monkey holding a banana and want Tianna to get it because he could join my family. But Tianna says he is too expensive, and besides, I find out that he isn’t very friendly anyway. So Tianna buys a banana pencil case instead, while I get a stuffed banana pillow 'thingie'. We each order Banana splits at the café and end up with completely messy banana-faces!
We have our photos taken in front of the massive banana, say goodbye to Cuddle Bunny and the banana itself, and then leave with Jonah’s owner's family, and travel back to the hotel, to pack up all our stuff and drive through to Sydney. There is time for a bit of exploring of the city, like some of the shops and stuff and getting photos in front of the Sydney Opera House, before joining the rest of the tour group at Bilson’s restaurant for a farewell dinner. We then leave for the airport, say goodbye to the new friends we have made, say a teary goodbye to Jonah, because even though he lives in Victoria too, he doesn’t live in Melbourne. I actually even say a sad goodbye to the tour guide. I have to say, I think I might even miss seeing his annoying face every day. We hop onto the plane and take off for home.
We are now in the airplane and quite a few of the passengers have even fallen asleep. I am feeling very sad (and I might, but don’t want to, cry) because I haven’t met or even heard of my family yet, and I was so sure that I would.... But, I guess that doesn’t matter, because at least I have Tianna, and her family and her other stuffed animals,.. it's just… Well, I guess I should be grateful for even being able to come on such an experience... My favourite bits were going into the dark cellars of the Taj Mahal, spotting the Big Five at the Kruger National Park, seeing that “monkey painter” painting at the Louvre, going on extremely fast rides in Disney World, having amazing devotions before riding a helicopter while we were in Rio de Jeneiro looking at the statue of Christ the Redeemer, having a whole bunch of fun at the Big Banana, and meeting so many amazing stuffed toys that are now all my pen-pals. In fact, since I can’t sleep, I might just start on those letters now…
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