The Big Mango: Google doodle celebrates Bowen’s giant tourist attraction with a colourful past

The cheeky big fruit from north Queensland that mysteriously went ‘missing’ back in 2014 turns 21

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Thursday’s Google doodle is celebrating the 21st birthday of the Big Mango, with more than two decades of the 10m-tall fruit’s existence marked by countless road trip snaps as well as one of Guardian Australia’s earliest investigative coups.

Construction of the 10-tonne fibreglass structure began on 25 May 2002 in the town of Bowen in north Queensland, as a hefty tribute to its world-famous mangoes and prosperous fruit orchards.

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