This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
Approximate location · 16.944° S, 145.740° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
An eight-metre marlin outside a shopping centre, which is a stranger setting than it sounds.
Cairns is one of the world's great game fishing ports. The black marlin grounds off the outer reef north-east of here, along the Ribbon Reefs, are where the largest black marlin ever caught on rod and line have come from – fish over a tonne – and the spring season draws boats and anglers internationally. The industry made Cairns before tourism did the same job at larger scale.
So the fish is right for the city. What makes this entry unusual is that it stands at Earlville, a suburban shopping precinct several kilometres inland from the water, rather than on the waterfront where the boats are. Urban Big Things sited by retail traffic rather than by subject are a small group in this catalogue, alongside the Wantirna South watermelon and the Melbourne Central pocket watch.
Cairns holds a second one worth noting. A Cairns tours account records the Big Scout Hat on Grafton Street – made entirely of fibreglass, sitting on top of an old military building, and a city landmark since 1982.
Marlin are also, unlike most catalogue subjects, an animal whose relationship with people has changed. The Cairns fishery is now overwhelmingly tag-and-release, which means an eight-metre trophy fish on a pole commemorates a practice that no longer works the way the sculpture implies.
Nobody wrote down the material used, the installation date and any attribution.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
An urban Big Thing with shopping-centre parking and facilities nearby.
ACCESS
Navigate to Earlville Shopping Town at 537 Mulgrave Road. The centre is open seven days and provides 2,400 free car spaces with vehicle access from Ishmael Road and Mulgrave Road. The Big Marlin stands outside the shopping centre; the stored object point remains approximate, so the destination pin should be treated as the attraction/centre site rather than a surveyed entrance or parking bay.
