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Published: November 16th 2010
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Commence the Croc Cruise
Well at our second attempt! We arrived at our first stop in the Northern Territory, the city of Katherine, and headed to Springvale Homestead which claims to be oldest cattle station in the Northern Territory. It’s situated in the outskirts of the town, was quiet, very green and full of wallabies, just hundreds of them everywhere you looked.
On our arrival we signed up to do a night time croc spotting boat trip later that evening then took some time to chill out and enjoy our surroundings. It was pitch dark by the time headed to the meeting point, torches in hand. We waited and waited, no sign of anyone, not a soul! After waiting for 45mins we headed to the site restaurant/bar to enquire what had happened, they told us that the boat had waited as long as they could for us but eventually had to leave without us. Most confused we double checked the location and explained that we were most definitely there, actually had been 15 minutes early. The manager then asked us what time it was, not until he asked us this a second time did the penny drop! There’s a time difference between Western Australia and The Northern Territory, of
That's not a croc PMac, it's a sign!
Shortly before take 2, when we actually set off! 1.5 hours! Oops.
The manager and his table of guests very kindly didn’t take the piss out of us too much and said we could go the following night instead. Which we did and it was a most brilliantly bizarre experience.
The trip was run by a husband and wife, he drove the boat and cooked the barbeque while she did most of the talking and croc spotting. Armed with a torch each, seven of us set off up Katherine River when it was still light. We spotted a few small freshwater crocs (only found in Australia, smaller and less aggressive than salties, but still bloody impressive animals) on the riverbanks. As it got dark and the crocs took to the water we were shown how to use our torches to pick out their eyes which glowed red.
We stopped upstream for a BBQ meal and drinks. It was a pretty amazing spot. They had very basic tables set up, a gas barbecue and lighting powered by a little generator, which included fairy lights strung in the trees. As we enjoyed a glass of wine and some crackers and cheese, a large freshwater crocodile, about 3m long,
came right up to the shore beside us. We were gob smacked, terrified and thought we must have hit the jackpot on our croc hunting tour! However it soon became apparent that this was no one off fluke, this was Mouse, a male freshwater crocodile that came ashore almost every night on hearing the boat pull up.
As Mr Croc Tour cooked our BBQ of ‘snags‘ (sausages to us British folks) and steak, Mouse was fed his meal by Mrs croc tour! We stood in awe as she approached him with a bucket of steak, which looked to be a far superior cut to ours. The noise his huge jaw made as it snapped closed round the pieces of meat was incredible. Mrs Tour got pretty close to Mouse and when she moved with the bucket from one position to another he followed suit. She was careful to keep the bucket between her and Mouse at all times, though that didn’t really look like the greatest of protection against that jaw and those teeth!
When Mouse had finished eating his dinner it was time for us to have ours which I have to say was great considering we
Spot the croc
Chilling on the riverbank were by a lake in the middle of nowhere. After dinner we were introduced to a second freshwater croc, Jaws - a female, slightly smaller at 2.5m, and a lot shyer. Jaws wouldn’t come right up onto the bank and opted instead to be fed while remaining in the water. The reason being that Mouse had attacked her a few nights ago when they’d arrived at the same time. While Mrs Tour fed the croc her steak, we looked on as some turtles, came up beside Jaws, one even climbing onto Jaws’ back for a clearer view. There were loads of turtles in the water as we left to head back to the campsite and as we fed them some bread, huge barramundi fish surfaced to get in on the action too.
I’m now sure how ’natural’ it is to see a croc being fed steak from a metal bucket, or how healthy it is for them to become reliant on this food or so comfortable round humans but it was amazing to see them in their natural habitat and just a brilliantly random experience for what was such a basic little tour.
Our next croc experience wasn’t
It's Torch Time
The camera doesn't quite pick out the unblinking red eyes such a pleasant one. Whilst in Katherine we headed to the nearby Nitmiluk, a huge park (2920 sq-km) with loads to see and do but most famous as being the location of Katherine Gorge. After much research into the best way to see as much of the highlights as we could in the one day we had (well, we read a paragraph in Lonely Planet), we decided to hire canoes and make our own way as far up the Gorge as we could. On our arrival however, this quickly changed, best laid plans and all that eh! It turned out that gorges 1-3 were completely closed to swimmers as a very large, 5-6m of large, saltwater croc (the more aggressive variety) had been spotted. We were told that we could still kayak if we chose to do so but at the rental desk they advised that we did not - I believe the words of the young women behind the counter were ‘it’s up to you but there’s no way you’d get me out there in a kayak’. After pondering this advice for all of a mili-second, we decided not to kayak. When the people who would be receiving your
Meet Mouse...
We were literally a few meters from him! He doesn't suit his name that's for sure. money strongly recommend against spending that money, it is worth following their advice.
So instead we set out on a 12km bushwalking track that took us through monsoon rainforest to the second gorge. The gorge was amazing, just stunning and we had lunch on the rocks overlooking the river. A boat (something we had thought about but decided against) packed full of people, including a screaming child sailed passed and waved up at us. The child’s screams and the words of the tour guide echoed round the rock walls, momentarily disturbing our idyllic spot where we soaked up the incredible surroundings before retracing our steps back along the route in. The walk itself, which took a good few hours over some pretty rough terrain, wasn’t all that as you were far away from the actual gorge most of the time. Kayaking would really have been the best way to have spent our day and see far more of Katherine Gorge. We cursed that pesky croc, but we were glad of one thing. at least we weren’t stuck on that crammed bloody boat!
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