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Published: March 7th 2010
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One slight oversight I made when planning my around the world trip all those months ago was spending some time in Darwin during their wet season. It wasn’t a huge error, but due to it being wet season some areas of Kakadu National Park would be closed due to flooding. This was one of the main reasons why I came to Darwin, but alias I was still able to see jumping crocs.
I was due to meet a uni friend, Helen in Darwin. She has planned to come out to Oz to work for a year, and wanted to do some travelling beforehand. She was due to meet me in Darwin and then we would fly together to Cairns and work our way down the east coast. I arrived mid afternoon in Darwin from Perth and found some accommodation for Helen and I for the three days we were due to spend in Darwin. She was due to land later than night. I also booked us on a croc jumping tour for the following day.
We were picked up from the central bus station in Darwin and driven up to the Adelaide River which is home to some of
the world biggest crocs. Up until this point I hadn’t experienced any rain and wondered what all the fuss was about the wet season in Darwin. On the way up to the tour company’s base we took a detour off slightly. Our bus driver for the day was also a Park Ranger in Darwin and showed around Darwin. He took us to an area about 45 minutes drive from Darwin, where during the 1950’s they tried to grow rice in the area, partly because of the amount of rainfall the area receives each year. That experiment didn’t work, but left a vast flatland, perfect for wildlife to live in, especially crocs. The road which leads into the field runs straight down the middle of the field. During the wet season, people are not allowed to get out of their cars on the road. There have been sightings of crocs that lie on the road not letting people past. Whilst we are driving along the road you can see that on certain parts of the road water is running from one part of the land, across the road and onto the other side. When it starts to rain, water is greater
it flows onto the road. That is how animals that live in the water, like fish etc, get from one side to the other. The land also has crocs in which the park rangers set traps trying to catch them, but when the rain levels are high it is almost impossible to catch them. One benefit of the water levels being high is that it enables park rangers to reduce the amount of feral animals in the area. Darwin has a feral pig and goat problem, which when the water levels rise, the park rangers go out in their boats and look for any feral animals that are taking refuge on high ground. When they spot these animals it is shooting practice for the rangers as they shoot all the animals. This sounds a little harsh, but the animals cause more damage to the local wildlife and are not indigenous to the area. They adopt the same technique as I came across in the Galapagos. The Judas goat technique. They will catch a female goat, or the correct term I believe is a doe, or nanny. They attach a tracking device to the goat and when the goat has attracted
other goats then they go in shooting.
As we set off to the croc jumping base it started to rain. When we arrived would found out there would only be 6 people on our tour, which meant we had plenty of room on the boat to take snaps. One of the guys taking the tour asked if anyone wanted to hold a snake.
‘Er, not me’ I replied. ‘No interest in that at all’.
Helen wanted to hold one, but she has sun cream on, which can be absorbed into the skin of the snake and can kill them. The snake he was going to let us hold wasn’t dangerous, it was an olive python. It did look nice from 10 metres away when he was holding it, but again, when it comes to snakes, I just have no interest in holding or touching a snake. I think it is just the way they move and look. When he put the snake back into the glass container, it crawled back into a nice cool dark place and that was the last I saw of that snake. I found a new sense of swagger then that snake was put
away. I started talking about snakes to the guide. The conversation was going really well until he mentioned that there was a Taipan spotted slithering across the car park about an hour ago. My face changed in an instant. I didn’t fancy bumping into a Taipan, as that snake can do some serious damage, and this guy was telling me that one was spotted in the car park an hour ago. I reckon I feel safer on the water with the crocs I mentioned, so on that note we boarded the boat and set off in search for crocs. Just as we started to leave, the heavens opened and the heavens started to open.
Within ten minutes of travelling down the river, we had spotted the first crocodile of the day. The crocodile are attracted to the vibrations the boat’s engine makes in the water. These crocs get ‘fed’ a couple of times a day, so they know now if they hear a boats engine then more than likely they are going to get fed. The guide sets up his fishing line with a piece of meat attached to the end, and hangs it over the side of the
boat. When the crocs first show themselves by popping their head out of the water, it is hard seeing how big they are. The average size of a croc is about 5 metres and the first one we saw was about that size. The croc will always look at the other food sources first before he/she will take the piece of meat on the end of the fishing line. As the croc was swimming alongside the boat it was eyeing up each person on the boat in the hope that we would be the dinner instead of the piece of meat. After teasing the croc a couple of times by lifting the line as the croc was going for the meat, you could see as the croc was jumping how big they were and how they use their tail to push them out of the water to try and get food. Once the croc had jumped a couple of times the guide let the croc eat the meat. The first thing you notice when a croc shuts its mouth is the noise it makes. It is like a popping sound, which is the sound of air being pushed out of the crocs mouth. When the jaw shuts, there is 3 tonnes of pressure being exerted, so if you get something caught in there, like a leg or an arm, then you can kiss that particular limb goodbye.
After seeing our first two crocs being fed, the guide decided to try and get the next croc out of the water and onto the bank, so we would see how big these creatures were. The next croc which came along was 6 metres long. The guide managed to get the croc onto the bank by tempting it with food, and then once he had fed the croc, started scratching the back of the crocs head with his fishing rod. The croc seemed to like this. At this point I was behind the guide because if the croc decided to come at the boat then the guide would be the one who went first. Nothing happened, and the boat set off back as the croc jumping was over. On the way back we spotted, a river eagle, who when he spotted us, headed for a tree and started to watch the boat. The guide took out the last piece of meat in the bucket. He tied it onto the rod and started the boat off as fast as it would go. He hung the rod over the side and the river eagle jumped of the branch and headed straight for the meat. Within 5 seconds it had caught up with us. It swooped and grabbed the meat with its feet and flew away. I was amazed by this and wondered how many more animals were trained to take food from humans.
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