The Big Crocodile Head

That makes it one of a small number of genuinely functional Big Things – architecture rather than sculpture, doing a real job in the running of a business. It also sets expectations with total efficiency. Anyone walking through is about to board a boat on the Daintree River to look for estuarine crocodiles, and the entrance communicates the scale of animal they are hoping to see before a word is spoken.

The siting is exact. It stands immediately before the Daintree River Ferry, the cable ferry carrying vehicles across into the Daintree proper and Cape Tribulation beyond. Everybody heading north waits in that queue, which makes this one of the highest-traffic positions in Far North Queensland for an object of its kind.

Estuarine crocodiles in this river genuinely reach and exceed the length the sculpture implies, so unlike most oversized animals this one is not exaggerating.

It has been working for over two decades and remains a current, functioning entrance rather than a relic – which, for a structure in wet tropical conditions, reflects real maintenance.

The ferry queue is the other half of its success. Crossing the Daintree River involves waiting, and a business positioned where drivers are already stationary with time to look around has an advantage no highway frontage can match.