Crocodile DunDarwin

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Today we were going croc spotting on the Adelaide river! It was about an hour or so away from Darwin, and we left just before 10am. There are lots of places here with weird names, and it didn't change as we drove through Humpty Doo (home of the world-famous  humpty  tavern apparently- no I've never heard of it either) a bit of off roading to get down to the river, the car was covered in that signature red dust of the northern territory.
When we got to the croc place, whilst waiting to get on the boat, we sat and read a folder that was crammed full of articles from the NT Times to do with Crocodile attacks and / or sightings, let me tell you, there were a lot!   
Within minutes of boarding the boat we saw a croc, slowly floating towards us, then another further up river. We were later told there are an estimated ten thousand crocodiles in the Adelaide river alone ( probably more than the population of the entire NT ha ha!)  
We sailed on for about 5-10 minutes before encountering a female croc- apparently it's easy to tell the difference as females are smaller. Males Continue to grow until they die, hence you get some big bad boys kicking about from time to times. The second one we saw was definitely a Mr Croc as he was much bigger, and this was evident when he was enticed out onto the banks going crazy for the bait. We saw a couple more, and the girls taking the trip were really good at identifying them, like ' oh yeah, we've not seen him for a while' how they can tell them apart I have no idea, they said mostly from markings or scars. We sailed past a nest which had been flooded during the wet, and the were remnants of egg shells where the mother had returned to the nest, realized nothing was happening so ate the eggs.
The funniest croc I saw, was one that had lost part of it's upper jaw, probably from a fight at sometime or other. Anyway, as a consequence his lower teeth jutted out in front of his upper ones- like a Jimmy hill chin ( for those dental reading this, think a class 3) maybe you had to be there, but it made me laugh. Would take some serious orthodontics to sort out that problem....
On the way back one of the girls was feeding the red kites that were hovering ahead, they were like mental kamikaze birds swooping down as she threw them bits of meat, and you could hear all the cockatoos in the trees squawking and making loads of noise- a strange sight considering they are kept in cages as pets back home. 
On the way back we stopped to take a picture of a heron like bird just chilling out. Chris later told me this was probably a jarabu bird-there are that many different species and types of animal/ bird over here, it's hard to keep track.
Anyway, speaking of Chris, Captain Coates was home today after a 2 week exercise in the bush with his unit here in the Australian Defence Force. I was looking forward to seeing him seeing as the last time I saw him we were all trollied, crying our eyes out at his Ali and Sams imminent departure ( too much bubbly)!
We went to pick him up from Robertson Barracks, which is a big old place, home to quite a few regiments- well, probably all the regiments in the Northern Territory. I was laughing as he strode out in his Australian get up and shouted 'Oi Oi' in his thick British accent - good to see that despite his new Ozzy citizenship, he could still speak the Queens English!
Whilst we were waiting for Chris, Ali took me for a quick tour of the barracks. I have to say, working at a dental centre here has much more appeal, especially when it's located opposite the gym- which is fab, and an outdoor Olympic size swimming pool- which is even better. I guess the novelty would wear off after a bit, but still- anywhere has to be better than Aldershot!
Back at Alis, we had lunch out on the patio and I caught the sun quite a lot on one arm- I will get that tan- even if it is limb by limb! Later when sam got home, we watched a rugby game on Tv between a Kiwi and S.African team. Sam was trying to explain to me how Rugby 15s work, but I struggle to keep up with union and league, and then they throw in AFL which is random. The kiwis lost anyway, but it was a good game. After dinner, we went to watch Sam play rugby against the 
Swamp dogs from a place called Coolalinga. They were a fast bunch and unfortunately Sams team lost this time. 
I was in bed for around 10pm, which is still quite early for me, but it was another early start- as tomorrow we go on our little adventure in the outback.

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