Estuarine crocodile making his way into the Alligator River for a hopeful breakfast.
Wow! What a crazy continent! Australia has always been a place of wonder for me – weird animals, reptiles as common as crows in Canada and dinosaurs. Yes, truly, I mean real live dinosaurs. Salt water crocodiles. Man, woman and child eaters. Eaters of anything they can get their giant jaws around.
Our first crocodile giving us the evil eye as he slips past us on the boardwalk. Possible dinner?
Matt will have given you the mile by mile details of our travels up as far as the Gibb River Road and back around to the Purnululu (Bungle Bungle) National Parks. As we arrived toward the north in Katherine, we entered crocodile territory. Where no river, lake, stream or ocean is safe to stand on the shoreline. Another unique Australian feature to make me very nervous of embarking on Matt’s wild adventures. More things that can kill you!
That first crocodile heading up river into the sunset after his tasty “duck l’orange.
Now there are two types of crocodiles, just so you know. There’s the “salties” (the killing type), or officially known as Crocodile Estuarine and there is the fresh water types. The latter are kind, gentle creatures that prefer fish and frogs for their diets. Typically they are shy of humans and in many billabongs (water holes), you would rarely even see them. Both types can disappear under water and stay there for up to three hours. They glide so smoothly under water that you cannot see their movement. Add a muddy river and they are perfectly invisible! Most Australians are quick to give croc advise and assure you it is perfectly safe to swim with “freshies”. Not this coward! A crocodile is a crocodile and both types are large, have big jaws and many teeth. Best to avoid any confusion and just not go for a swim.
Would you want to be in the same water as this fellow?! The danger is very real!
Our first encounters with crocodiles was in Kakadu National Park just south east of Darwin. We definately had arrived into the tropics. The land was lush, green with lots of palm trees and tropical flowering plants and vines. Kakadu is a land of ancient stone escarpments laced with billabongs, streams and rivers. We arrived just as the wet season was building up; wicked thunder and lightning storms blew over our tent most nights (yet another element to make me quake under my blanket!). With the rain came the water build up, which means that more crocodiles (salties) arrive with the wet season.
This bad boy was at least 16 feet long, likely a male.
Happiness is a warm duck, snap snap, chomp chomp!
Content with his meal, he is still giving us the hopeful eye – just lean a little further off the platform with that camera he’s thinking.
Our first salt water crocodile was on our arrival at Yellow River camp ground. We headed down to the boat launch to check out the river at sunset and immediately on our arrival, I spot a log floating out from the shore some 100 metres upstream from us. We quickly zoom in with our 200mm lenses and sure enough, it’s a croc. A really big one, about four metres long and he was coming our way! There he was, swimming effortlessly swaying his great spiny tail propelling him past us. Forget the sunset shoot, we head out after him on the board walk that takes you into a billabong – just where he was headed. So there we are a kilometre from the road on a 12 foot square platform two feet off the water with only two bars separating us from this big, hungry crocodile. He seems not to mind us snapping away with our cameras. Suddenly, he twists his great body, ducks his head underwater and swings directly towards us on the dock. Naturally, I freak out and stumble back, while cool Matt composes his next shot. Snap, Snap! No, not our cameras, but the big croc’s jaws! Six feet in front of us he emerges chomping down on his supper. In ten seconds, he chomped five times and slid his head back into the water and burped a mighty fine belch! Well satisfied with his meal, he eventually moved back out of the billabong. Upon closer inspection of Matt’s photos, we saw his meal – a long legged water fowl! Two feet sticking out of his gaping jaws! Our first encounter with a killer crocodile.
Early morning boat cruise brought us up close to many beautiful dinosaurs.
At Yellow River Matt and I took two sunrise river tours up the South Alligator River (a misnomer by an early explorer who didn’t know his crocs from his alligators). Each morning we were delighted to see up close many salt water crocodiles along with a wide variety of river birds, tree snakes, eagles and herons. The bonus was the free buffet all you can eat breakfast after the cruise! After our daily breakfast of home made muesli and instant decaf coffee, we thought we were in heaven. Especially the second day as the breakie was not included in our discount fare! The very sweet woman at the restaurant insisted we help ourselves as they cooked way too much! All I asked for was a free cup of coffee! Sweet!
We weren’t the only ones getting a free buffet, this one snatched up a dead barrumundi fish, who expire as the oxygen depletes from the billabongs at the end of the dry season.
Other than one billabong on top of a tall waterfall in Kakadu, we never dipped our toes in those waters. The crocodiles were everywhere. On leaving the park, we stopped in for the “Spectacular Jumping Crocodile” cruise on the Adelaide River. This is a river you would never want to swim in or go out in a small boat. These cruises have been going on for 30 years and the crocs have been trained to come out to the boat and jump the length of their bodies out of the water for a hand out of steak! Yikes! OK, definitely not an eco friendly business, but it was worth every penny paid to get those shots of crocs leaping out of the water!
Our lovely ship host baits the pole with big beef steaks.
Note the armless croc on the left. A real survivor and likely depends on the boat tours.
What a sight to see these solid muscle bodies rise in the air.
Our travels seemed to get a bit dull from there on. No further saltie encounters. Way up on the Gibb River Road, we hiked and camped at several gorges and rivers and didn’t see one crocodile. We knew we were no longer in saltie territory, but were quite sure that freshies would be in the water holes we found. With astounding courage, I pushed all caution into the wind and did go swimming in some amazing billabongs! Crystal clear water flowing from majestic waterfalls, all alone in the outback. A necessity to cool down from +80 degree temperatures! We didn’t see any sign of freshies, but did think that it was fairly likely that one or two lurked about hiding from us as we splashed about. We did see a good number of freshies in the creek at Winjana park. The water had not begun to flow there so there was no way I was going in that skankywater, The fresh water crocs were free to swim without fear of us. And they did fear us each time we approached them basking on the bank they would slip into the water and watch us.
Three freshies watching us from the Windjana Gorge. They were curious about us but would not stay close to the shore as we approached.
As we head west we will leave crocodile country behind us. I think my encounters with these great monsters, will always be a high light of my Auzzy adventures. Did you know that crocodiles have existed on this earth since before the dinosaur era?! Crazy. They are truly a cross between a real live dinosaur and a dragon (without wings). They have three layers of eyelids over their amazing yellow eyes and their ridges and scales are often all you will see of their bodies in the water which become large spiky sails all the way down their tails. Like stegosaurus scales! Truly a beautiful reptile.
Dangerous but beautiful. Exciting but frightening.
farfar-away™ 
What type of crocodile is of this last photo ?