Cruisin’ for crocs

The Northern Territory is croc-country. Everywhere you go you’ll see adverts for jumping crocodile cruises, swimming with them, holding them, seeing farms where they’re bred for their skins and meat, souvenirs and postcards aplenty but also the standard river cruise where you may simply get a glimpse of one.

For someone coming from England, the image of crocodiles is a fearful one but for the hardy Aussies, the same view is shared. The rule is simple. Don’t mess with a crocodile or put yourselves in a position where you could become lunch. The awareness campaigns are such that leaflets are handed out at service stations, tourist information and caravan parks. The general signage you see around doesn’t prevent much confusion either!

There are two types of crocs; freshwater or ‘freshies’ and estuarine (saltwater) or ‘salties’, both only the larger ‘salties’ are the troublesome ones due to their territorial nature. Messing with crocs still attracts the news. Whilst in Darwin, there were many articles including the front page article with bikini-clad women sunbathing on top of a croc trap and a male friend kayaking around it, as well as a 5.5m ‘saltie’ having to be shot in Arneham Land due to it eating the local’s cattle. It needed two Toyota Landcruiser vehicles, capable of each towing large caravans to pull the croc from the area.

Our experiences with crocs is very minimal having had a cruise along the Daintree River and seeing ‘Fat Albert’; a large ‘saltie’ but decided to embark on a sunset river cruise at Mary River Park, between Darwin and Kakadu National Park to see whether we could see any here. It was a pleasant affair with a small boat carrying 15 or so of us along the river.

On the banks were several small ‘freshies’ basking in the afternoon sun but also several large ‘salties’ resting on a sandbank. We were warned not to lean over the side and keep arms and legs inside. It was one of those warnings that everyone could comprehend!

All in all our trip lasted about 90mins and allowed us to see about 15 crocs of both species in their natural surroundings. It was amazing to see such intelligent creatures within a short distance of us. Our skipper told us of a tourist some time back who went swimming in the river completely disregarding the risk of these animals to life and rather bluntly told us that if something had happened, it would be a fool to go in and rescue him.