MILDURA needs Something Big to distinguish itself from the ruck of Australian cities and towns clamouring for the tourist dollar. Something worthy of a Guinnessian superlative: largest, heaviest, tallest, greatest or longest.

A Gigantic Grape, perhaps, or a Brobdignagian Bunch of Sultanas? Joking: in the name of good taste, and the sophisticated modern tourist, we should avoid adding to the the nation’s menagerie of supersized concrete, steel and fiberglass mammals, crustaceans and fish, or its roadside salad of monstrous fruits.

Mildura’s tourism chief Rod Trowbridge’s message is that ecotourism is the new frontier. It’s not only overseas visitors who want close encounters with our aged continent’s extraordinary flora and fauna. Australians want them too.

Most Australians inhabit the suburban wilds of large coastal cities. They grow non-native gardens that attract unloved aliens like blackbirds, sparrows, thrushes, and those dastardly Indian mynahs.

Aside from the occasional brush with an urban possum, a leaking koala, or an unwanted dance with a lust-crazed Eastern brown snake with horizontal intentions, that’s pretty much the limit of our eco-experiences.

How might we enhance Mildura’s credentials as an ecotourism destination?

In my first column several weeks ago I lamented that Mildura had missed a golden opportunity to create a spectacular entrance to the city, with the council’s decision to redevelop Deakin Avenue’s aging centre plantations and nature strips with the same trees that our city fathers planted nearly a century ago.

For more of this story, purchase your copy of Saturday’s Sunraysia Daily 07/11/2009.