Tourist attraction ‘The big Kookaburra’

When I first joined our local 2000 committee,( which is a group of people formed to promote and better our town Donald.) Donald is in the heart of Victoria, a go ahead town with a great community feel. Graeme 'Pickles' Harris, a well known legend of Donald, suggested to me he would love a big kookaburra to front the big new 'Kooka's Country Cookies' factory. This got me thinking,'How can I make this Happen.'

The Kooka's Country Cookies factory is a line I use to describe Donald if someone is not familiar with our town. Nine out of ten people know of the butter biscuits with the jam filling.

Kooka's biscuits began production in 1991, in a small warehouse near our big grain corp silos.

The business has expanded and is now building a state of the art factory to accommodate the ever increasing market. They employ over twenty five people, which encourages young families to stay in the area. Kooka's has over 20 share holders who have big plans for the new factory.

Searching for a perfect big icon to go with the factory and put Donald on the tourism map, I got googling, I found an amazing sculpture of a Kookaburra, it was perfect, so letting my fingers do the walking, I tracked down the designer/artist.

Chris Fussell, a quietly spoken humble man, so easy to communicate with, has a beautiful life story. He and his wife worked side by side with their art for over 50 years. Unfortunately Chris lost his wife to cancer last year. His whole world as he knew it was gone and so was his enthusiasm for art.

He is now fifteen years older than when he created his last Kookaburra. He enjoyed our chat but said no to doing any more work. I'm not sure what I was expecting from just one phone call with an artist that I had just touched base with who lives in near Newcastle, a good ten hours from Donald, then, two weeks later, he texted me to say that maybe he had one more Kookaburra in him. I was ecstatic.

Chris won an Australian illustration competition at the age of 13, he attended the National Art School East Sydney Tech, 5 years full time diploma course, finishing in 1968 where he met his life time love, fellow artist Frances. They married and moved to Pokolbin after spending a year overseas. . They have had many exhibitions in Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane and Pokolbin at their "Crowtrap Studio'.

So this is where all you generous people come on board to make this happen. We are asking past, present and anyone interested in our beautiful town to generously support this grand idea to bring this dream to fruition.

Our aim is to raise $50,000 to cover all expenses including $25,000 for the sculpture. The bird is made from steel, the feathers all being cut from old car bonnets, the claws are made from horse shoes. The total height will be 4.5 metres. Engineering computations, planning and building compliance certificates, concrete, fibreglass reinforcing and a big stand of concrete in the shape of a tree stump as a perch for the Kookaburra.

The Donald 2000 committee is promoting the project with a contribution of $2500.

Discussions concerning where best to site the Kookaburra always return to the factory, as having it placed anywhere else would be irrelevant.

The project would be first and foremost a tourist attraction drawing visitors to Donald as a must see stop over destination

The Donald 2000 looks forward to this project progressing.

Jodie Hollis

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