Kyle North-Flanagan with the frame for Wagga’s Big Murray Cod that has been restored and is ready for a new ‘skin’ and a paint job. Photo: Chris Roe.
Progress on the restoration of Wagga’s historic Big Murray Cod sign is continuing with the almost 50-year-old icon’s ‘bones’ back on site and awaiting a fresh skin before returning to its perch overlooking the Sturt Highway.
Local builder Kyle North-Flanagan purchased the property that was once home to the popular fauna park alongside the hatcheries and hauled the faded cod away in June to begin the process of bringing it back to its former glory.
“The challenge has just been finding the time because we’re all busy with work and everything’s been volunteered so far, but it’s coming together,” said Kyle, who has enlisted a team of fellow tradies keen to support the project.
“A friend of mine has helped with all the steelwork, fixing the structural steel and replacing all the rusted channelling and painting it and then Benny Guiton, from Wagga Marble and Granite, water jet cut the new sheets of aluminium.
“So once we stick the composite aluminium onto the frame, Dan from Signs Plus is gonna airbrush all that here in the shed.”
The repaired steel frame was placed on the brickwork to make sure it would all fit together. Photo: Supplied.
Kyle and the team have funded much of it themselves but have had some support from the public via a GoFundMe.
They have also collected historic photos dating back to when it was installed, including one of the freshly painted fish on the back of a Gil Mathew Steel truck ready to be delivered to its new home.
Artist Dan Seddon will look to recreate the historic paint job with a “modern twist” and has a few ideas for how to recreate the googly eyes that watched over the highway for half a century.
A photo from 1975 shows the original cod aboard a Gil Mathew flatbed truck ready to be taken to its new home. Photo: Supplied.
The 9-metre-long, two-dimensional ‘Big Thing’ presided over the entrance to the Murray Cod Hatcheries and Fauna Park since shortly after it was opened to visitors in 1975.
Over the next decade, the complex developed into a multiple award-winning tourist attraction with thousands of visitors stopping by each year to see the native animals and pose for a family pic with the iconic sign on the Sturt Highway.
The hatcheries complex also included an aquarium that was home to the largest Murray cod in captivity.
‘Big Murray’ tipped the scales at 52 kg and was rumoured to be more than 100 years old.
The Big Cod’s new skin of aluminium panels is ready to be attached to the frame and painted. Photo: Supplied.
While many locals called the sign Big Murray after the ancient cod that lived there, Kyle said he was looking for suggestions for a “rebrand” now that the hatchery and tourist park were gone.
“I’m open to ideas on what to call it and what colour to paint the brickwork so that it can be its own thing,” Kyle said.
“Do we say The Big Cod or The Mighty Cod? I just want to put it out there and see what people reckon because it’s the first thing you see as you come into Wagga.”
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