On our way to Nyal we stopped to take a break in Swan Hill to see Arnold.  Swan Hill in the home of the Grant Murray Cod so called as “it is bigger than big.”

The story of Arnold as the locals call him started way back before 1994.  He started out as a prop for a movie called Eight Balls, where two blokes were involved in designing a tourist attraction.  Then it was a case of life imitating art.  At the end filming the question was asked ‘what do we do with the big fish.’  Arnold stands 14 metres long and 5 meters high.  He was too good to destroy and too big to be put into storage.  After much though he was offered to the town of Swan Hill as … you guessed it, as a new tourist attraction. It works as Arnold  make us stop and have a look.  We didn’t do what most tourist do,  although it is not recommended, a lot of the tourists have their photo taken standing inside of his mouth.

The Murray Cod is the largest native freshwater fish found in Australia and one of the largest in the world.  The cod calls the Murray – Darling basin home.  As Arnold is so big it begged the question how big was the biggest cod caught?  The largest one on record was 1.8 meters and weighed in at 113kg. But you should have seen the one that got away, it was twice the size (apparently.)

The cod is one of Australia’s biggest eating fish.  It has a mild flavour, which is suited to many dishes.  Numbers in the wild have been over shushed so now most of the Cod eaten in Australian now come from farming the fish.