The Big Barramundi

The pairing is a little odd on first reading and makes sense on the second. Tarzali Lakes is a working aquaculture operation as well as a wildlife attraction – the lakes hold fish, and barramundi is what visitors come to catch. The platypuses are wild residents of the same water. So the property offers both a farmed fish and a genuinely rare chance to see a monotreme in daylight, and the barramundi advertises the half that people pay for.

The Atherton Tablelands are an unusual place for a barramundi. This is high country behind Cairns – cool, wet, volcanic, dairying and rainforest rather than tropical estuary – so a barra here is farmed rather than caught wild, which is exactly what the operation does.

Platypus are considerably easier to see on the Tablelands than almost anywhere else in Australia. The streams are clear, the animals are relatively unbothered, and dawn and dusk sightings are close to reliable.

Queensland's giant barramundi are well represented – the one on the tackle shop at Katherine is in the Territory, but Minbun joins a scatter of them across the north.

The unanswered questions are its scale.