The Big Brahman

The Brahman is the right breed for the tropics and the wrong one for southern Australia, which is exactly the point. Brahmans are humped Bos indicus cattle, bred for heat, ticks and poor feed, and they transformed northern Australian grazing when they were introduced in the mid-twentieth century. A district on the Atherton Tablelands running Brahmans is running the animal that made cattle viable this far north.

Mareeba has an unusually varied agricultural identity – tobacco once, then coffee, mangoes, sugar and cattle – and the bull represents the most enduring part of it.

The heritage centre itself is a working local museum with interactive displays and five-dollar entry, which makes the bull a free object at the door of a paid one.

Centenary Park is a straightforward public setting, so the statue is genuinely open rather than behind a gate.

Nobody wrote down its size, the decade it belongs to and the maker's name.