The night market in Cairns opens at 4pm and closes around 11. Why? It’s a night market because, in the dark, its creepy products will have the most impact on unsuspecting tourists.
“Ten bucks”, says my friend upon my arrival in Australia, “the first kangaroo you see will be dead by the side of the road.”
As it turns out, the first one I saw was dead, skinned and on sale as a rug in the night market.
Some of the other horrifying items were kangaroo scrotum keyring, umbilical cord moisturiser and a lighter case fashioned from a real frog body.
I was completely torn between horror and amusement and delight at the sight of these products. On the one hand, killing animals for tourist items is not cool and ahh the poor animals. On the other hand the discoverer in me was excited to see what other products they had cos let’s face it, this is something unusual and different to anything in England. This is what adventure is about.
I still haven’t managed to eat kangaroo stew though.
