VISIT THE WORLD’S LARGEST ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS! by Marcia Amidon Lusted

ne of the fun parts of any road trip is finding Ostrange and interesting things to stop and see along the way. All over the world, roadside attractions Sure, just set that can be the biggest, the funniest, or the strangest down anywhere. objects you’ve ever seen. Fasten your seat belts as we take you on a tour of some of them.

The Headington Shark, Oxford, United Kingdom While traveling around the world, you might want to visit the Headington Shark. He’s not in an aquarium: this shark is actually sticking into the roof of a house. The house was a basic terraced house on a normal street until 1986, when its owner decided to liven it up. He asked a sculptor friend to create a 25-foot fiberglass shark that would sit on the roof as if it had just crashed there. The owner later said that the shark was put there to protest things like nuclear power and weapons and government incompetence, but he also said he just liked sharks. Tourists from all over the world visit and local The Great Buddha of Thailand residents are proud of it. If you find yourself in Thailand, visit the Great Buddha, also called the Big Buddha, found at the Wat Muang temple in Ang Thong Province. This giant buddha, seated in a position called Maravijaya Attitude, is made of concrete painted gold. He towers 300 feet (92 meters) high and is 210 feet (63 meters) wide, and sits on the roof of the temple building. The Big Buddha cost more than $3 million to build and took 18 years to complete. He is so large—the tallest statue in Thailand and the seventh tallest in the world—that he can be seen from a long distance away. You won’t have any trouble finding him!

World’s Largest Lobster, New Brunswick, Canada If a giant shark makes you hungry for seafood, travel to Canada. There you will see the world’s largest lobster, perched on a rock in Shediac, New Brunswick, the Lobster Capital of the World. It is 35 feet long, built in 1989 from concrete and reinforced steel with fiberglass claws. A fiberglass fisherman stands in front of the statue. The statue took three years to build and cost $170,000. Half a million people a year visit the lobster and his fisherman friend.

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The Fork of Vevey, Vevey, Switzerland Giant Buddhas and sharks are impressive, but so are oversized everyday objects. In Vevey, Switzerland, visitors can see a giant fork (La Fourchette in French) sitting just offshore in the waters of Lac Léman. The stainless steel fork, which is 26 feet high and 4.3 feet wide, was built in 1995 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Alimentarium, a local food and nutrition museum. It was taken down for a year, but brought back by popular demand. The town of Vevey is very Ohhh, a Vevey, proud of its lake-dwelling giant fork. Vevey, big fork.

The Giant Carrot, Ohakune, North Island, New Zealand A giant fork requires giant food, and you can visit a giant carrot on your next trip to New Zealand. The 25-foot tall carrot marks the entrance to the town of Ohakune. The town is the carrot-growing capital of New Zealand. The statue was built in 1984 to celebrate the town’s Growers Association. It is the world’s largest carrot model, and was originally built as a prop for a television ad.

23 Big Pineapple, Bathurst, South Africa If you like fruits better than vegetables, travel to South Africa and see the Big Pineapple. It’s located in Bathurst on the Eastern Cape of South Africa. It’s almost 56 feet tall, making it the biggest pineapple in the world. It is three stories tall, built of metal and fiberglass, and visitors can climb to the top for a great view and displays about pineapples. It celebrates the fact that the pineapple was the first successful crop to be grown in the area.

Giant Clothespin, Chaudfontaine, Belgium If you have a lot of laundry to do, you’d better visit the Giant Clothespin in Belgium. It was built in 2010 for the festival of the Five Seasons in Chaudfontaine Park, just outside Liege, Belgium. The giant wooden clothespin seems to be holding up a mound of grass and dirt.

Lucy the Elephant, Margate City, New Jersey Back in the United States, another famous and very old animal statue is actually a six-story tall building. Lucy the Elephant was built in the seaside resort of Margate City, New Jersey, in 1881. Its wooden frame is covered with tin sheeting. It took a million pieces of wood and 12,000 square feet of tin to create the 65-foot-high and 60-foot-long structure, as well as 22 windows and 200 kegs of nails. Lucy has been a restaurant, a business office, a tavern, and a cottage, but she was so decrepit by the 1960s that she was nearly demolished. Volunteers raised the money to buy Lucy, move her, and repair her. Lucy is the oldest surviving roadside attraction in America and is a National Historic Landmark.

2424 The Kelpies, Grangemouth, Scotland Giant animal sculptures are one of the biggest roadside attractions all over the world. In Grangemouth, Scotland, two giant horseheads called The Kelpies guard the entrance to the Forth and Clyde canal. Kelpies are mythical shape-shifting Scottish water horses that are said to haunt rivers and streams. The statues are the tallest equestrian statues in the world and celebrate the history of horsepower in Scotland. They are made of steel structures covered with stainless steel “skin,” and stand almost 100 feet tall.

World’s Largest Ball of Twine, Cawker City, Kansas Finally, no tour of roadside attractions would be complete without a giant ball of twine. While several places claim to have giant balls of twine, the world’s largest is found in Cawker City, Kansas. Frank Stoeber started the ball in 1953, and just four years later, it weighed 5,000 pounds and stood eight feet high. Every August, Cawker City holds a Twine-a-Thon event during which visitors and residents can add twine to the ball. The ball weighs more than 20,000 pounds and is more than 11 feet high . . . and it’s still growing.

Here kitty, kitty . . . 25