It was hard to believe that our final full day in Cairns had arrived! What an amazing and interesting few weeks it has been! This morning we spent at Australian Fish Mounts with Steven Mathews and Sheena wrapping up Jess's completed Red Emperor wall mount ready to take home on tomorrow's flight. So with heaps of strategically placed sponge offcuts around the fins all encased in bubble wrap the Red Emperor was ready to go. It was slightly oversized for hand luggage but quite light as it is simply a hollow fibreglass reproduction so we hoped that there would not be any issue at the airport tomorrow. Time will tell! |
For those of you who use Facebook, his business - Australian Fish Mounts Facebook page can be found HERE Do check it out. Again a big thank you to Steven, for his professionalism, patience and time to teach Jess and Mr Roo and also Sheena, another young artist learning the ropes with Jess. It was a HUGELY valued experience!
The pictures below provide a basic snapshot of the various steps in Jess's chosen project, the beautiful Red Emperor for those who are interested in the process.
After our farewells we took the opportunity to take a road trip for the afternoon back out to Kuranda yet again and check out some more of the markets that we had still not seen on previous visits.
We also took a peek at the Australian Venom Zoo at Kuranda which was admittedly very underwhelming and not a place I would recommend. It had a range of 'exhibits' and most of these were actually in the foyer of the entry. Inside the building which lead down into a large dark dungeon area we had expected to see far more but there were just a handful of snakes mostly in a small area in enclosures in this huge space of empty darkness that were not exactly of a quality one would anticipate in an animal establishment. However, as we were leaving, the owner gave us a brief spiel on the different snakes and spiders that were housed in the foyer which was informative.
We still had plenty of daylight left so we decided to drive on further out to Mareeba. Mareeba is a large coffee crop growing area and reportedly grows 70% of Australia's coffee crop. As we arrived fairly late in the afternoon we did not plan to do the tours but to just have a look around the township as we had never been here before.
Interesting Fact : Mr Roo is a bit of a fan of coffee but did you know that Roo has never tried coffee? Yet.