This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.
12.81098° S, 131.06864° E
FIELD GUIDE
The story
Twenty-five metres of steel, laid out in the curve of a cracking stockwhip, forming the entrance to a shop. It is claimed as the world's largest stockwhip, and there is no obvious reason to doubt it.
The shop is Mick's Whips and Leather Goods, a gallery and store specialising in whips handmade by Mick Denigan, an internationally acclaimed stockwhip maker. That is the crucial detail. This is not a town landmark or a piece of council public art; it is a craftsman's sign, built at a scale that matches the seriousness of the craft behind it. The maker of very fine small objects has put up an enormous version of one.
The stockwhip itself deserves a word. A properly thrown whip cracks because the tip of the fall breaks the sound barrier – the energy of the swing concentrating as it travels down the tapering length. It is a genuine piece of applied physics that Australian stockmen worked out empirically and which good whipmakers still build for by hand, plaiting kangaroo hide in graduated strands so the taper is exactly right.
A 25-metre steel version cannot crack, but it can show the shape of the moment when one does, which is what the sculpture is: a whip frozen mid-throw.
One note on the address. Current tourism directory material gives the location as 555 Parkin Road and describes it as a detour off the Stuart Highway near Noonamah, while this catalogue records the locality as Fly Creek. The site is the same; the locality naming differs between sources.
Photograph
This is a photograph, shown separately from the illustration artwork.
Current tourism-directory material identifies the world’s largest stockwhip at 555 Parkin Road and describes the 25-metre steel sculpture as the entrance to Mick’s Whips and Leather Goods. Current NT Big Things material corroborates the same site.
ACCESS
Navigate to Mick's Whips at 555 Parkin Road only when visiting arrangements are appropriate. The current first-party site invites visitors to the Homestead/Whip Museum and asks visitors to phone before visiting. Use the property entrance and do not stop on Parkin Road.
