The Big Fly Swat unleashed after bar flies' inspired idea

Detailed summary

Kingoonya only has 13 residents and three horses, but it does have a lot of flies. Now, it also has the world's biggest fly swat, which it hopes will bring in the tourists.

A seven to eight hour drive into the outback north-west of Adelaide brings you to a micro town so small it's almost a ghost town.

Kingoonya, with its population of roughly 13, offers an authentic slice of Australian country life rarely glimpsed by outsiders. That is, until now.

It's hoped that the installation of Australia's latest "big thing" will draw more people to venture off the highway, visit the local pub or cafe and take a selfie to say they have seen the world's biggest fly swat.

Once a railway maintenance town for the tracks that criss-cross Australia from Sydney to Perth and Adelaide to Darwin, Kingoonya once had a population of over 100.

The trains still come — as many as 70 a week pass through — but few stop. While the railway workers and their families are long gone.

Up until the 1980s Kingoonya was still a busy petrol stop on the main road that travels up the middle of the country from Adelaide to Darwin.

But then the highways department decided to shift it 40 kilometres to the east, to Glendambo.

Overnight, the town nearly disappeared, with even the pub closing for a time.

"The population went down to one for a while," said Leesa Carty from the Kingoonya and Area Progress Association.

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