The Big Ned Kelly.

The story

On 28 June 1880, Ned Kelly and his gang — Joe Byrne, Dan Kelly, and Steve Hart — made their final stand in a tiny country pub in Glenrowan, Victoria. By the next morning, Joe Byrne was dead, Dan Kelly and Steve Hart had taken their own lives in the burning hotel, and Ned Kelly, wearing his now-famous handmade armour, had been brought down by gunfire to his unprotected legs. He was hanged in Melbourne on 11 November 1880, aged 25. The legend started the day he was born and hasn't stopped since.

Glenrowan never recovered as a township in the conventional sense, but it never needed to. The town became a permanent shrine to the Kelly story, and its population of just a few hundred lives entirely off the legend. Kate's Cottage — a replica of the Kelly family home in nearby Greta, named after Ned's sister Kate — has been the main museum since the 1960s, and it was owners Rod and Chris Gerret who decided in the early 1990s that Glenrowan needed a Big Thing.

"We wanted somewhere people could be photographed for free and big things seemed to be all the rage at the time," Chris Gerret told Australian Traveller. "So we decided to build a Big Ned Kelly to keep up with the rest." They commissioned Kevin Thomas, a Sydney-based special effects technician, to build the 6-metre, 1.5-tonne fibreglass outlaw at a cost of $12,000. It took eleven hours to truck the figure down from Sydney to Glenrowan, with multiple stops, and Big Ned Kelly III was unveiled on 14 April 1992.

Why "III"? Because there had been Big Ned Kellys at Glenrowan before — but the previous ones had been smaller, less imposing, and at least one was stolen and dumped in a nearby river. The 1992 version is the one that's stayed, partly because at 1.5 tonnes it's considerably harder to steal. He stands at the corner of Gladstone Street and Kate Street in front of the Glenrowan Post Office Newsagency, in full armoured pose, rifle in hand, exactly as Ned looked when he emerged from the morning mist on the day he was captured.

"The imposing statue of the infamous Aussie outlaw stands in Glenrowan, the Victorian town where he took his last stand. These days you'd be ill-advised to hold up the Glenrowan Post Office." — Australian Traveller magazine

There's actually a second Big Ned Kelly in Australia, at the Ned Kelly Hotel in Maryborough, Queensland — but the wild colonial boy and his gang never got within cooee of Maryborough, so we'll stick with the Glenrowan original. The Maryborough one is taller (7m) but the Glenrowan one is, by every reasonable measure, the real thing.

Visiting the Big Ned Kelly

The Big Ned Kelly is at the corner of Gladstone Street and Kate Street in Glenrowan — a small detour off the Hume Highway, about 14 kilometres south of Wangaratta and 236 kilometres northeast of Melbourne. Glenrowan is small enough that you can park anywhere in town and walk to everything in 10 minutes. The Big Ned Kelly himself is visible 24/7 and well-lit at night.

What's at the site

• The Big Ned Kelly himself — 6m armoured outlaw in classic last-stand pose. Best photo from street level looking up.
• Kate\'s Cottage — replica of the Kelly family home, museum with Kelly memorabilia, ticketed.
• Glenrowan Post Office Newsagency — the building behind Big Ned. Sells the obligatory Kelly Gang souvenirs.
• Original siege site — about 200m down the street; markers indicate where the Ann Jones\' Glenrowan Inn stood (the inn itself was burnt down during the 1880 siege).
• Ned Kelly Museum / Glenrowan Tourist Centre — multiple privately-operated Kelly-themed attractions in the town.

The Last Stand

On the morning of 28 June 1880, the Kelly Gang barricaded themselves inside Ann Jones\' Glenrowan Inn after a failed plan to derail a police train carrying officers from Melbourne. They had taken about 60 hostages from the town. The siege began before dawn.

Joe Byrne was killed early — shot in the groin while at the bar. Ned, wearing his iconic 44-kilogram armour fashioned from plough mould-boards, emerged from the inn into the morning fog and engaged the police directly, walking towards them in an apparently unstoppable advance. The armour deflected bullets at his torso, but his legs were exposed; he was eventually brought down by gunfire to his lower legs and captured. Dan Kelly and Steve Hart died inside the burning inn shortly afterward — likely by their own hand. Ned was tried in Beechworth, then in Melbourne, and hanged at Old Melbourne Gaol on 11 November 1880. His last words, by widely accepted tradition: "Such is life."

What else is nearby

Glenrowan is in Victoria\'s High Country, on the Hume Highway about 2.5 hours northeast of Melbourne. After the Big Ned Kelly, the obvious extensions are Beechworth (30 minutes east — where Ned was tried, also one of Victoria\'s loveliest historic towns), Wangaratta (15 minutes north — for a meal or overnight), and the Milawa gourmet region (20 minutes east — for cheeses, mustards, and the King Valley wineries). See our full Victorian High Country travel guide for the comprehensive itinerary.

For other Big Things, the closest is the Big Murray Cod at Tocumwal (2 hours northwest), the Giant Koala at Dadswells Bridge (4 hours west), and the Big Wine Bottle at Rutherglen (45 minutes north).

Trivia worth knowing

• The current statue is officially "Big Ned Kelly III" — there were earlier Big Ned Kellys at Glenrowan; at least one was stolen and dumped in a river.
• Sculptor Kevin Thomas was a Sydney-based special effects technician, not a traditional artist. The fibreglass build reflects his film/TV background.
• The 1992 build cost just $12,000 — remarkably cheap even by 1992 standards.
• Truck transport from Sydney to Glenrowan took 11 hours, with multiple stops to manage the oversized load.
• The unveiling on 14 April 1992 made the front page of Melbourne\'s Herald-Sun — alongside, by coincidence, a story about Alan Bond being jailed for fraud the same day.
• Ned\'s actual armour — the inspiration for the statue\'s pose — is held at the State Library of Victoria. The armour weighs 44 kilograms.

When to visit

Glenrowan and the Victorian High Country have warm dry summers and cold winters with the occasional snow flurry. Best months for visiting are March–May (autumn, the High Country at its best) and September–November (spring, comfortable for Beechworth wandering). Avoid mid-winter only if you\'re uncomfortable in 5°C weather, although bundled-up in a Beechworth pub with a glass of red is its own kind of perfect.