Crocodile Dundee

February 24th - Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia

We got up really early to head to the Adelaide River for some crocodile hunting. We made it eventually after much stressing and arguing about the car. We were told not to take the hire car down 'dirt' roads and when we arrived at the turning for the crocodile place it was 2km down a gravel track. We went, we got turned way, we turned back, we rang the people...stress stress stress. Eventually we made it with the car intact!!

There were about 12 of us on the boat and they took us out on the river and and tempted the crocodiles into jumping with chunks of meat.

Apparently there were around 10,000 'Salties' - saltwater crocodiles - in the river and they are bigger and meaner than the smaller 'Freshies' - freshwater crocodiles. They are quite callous animals and all tend to eat each other. The male can mate with several females, but might forget which ones he got with and eat one of them. The mother then guards the egg until it hatches, at which point she leaves it to fend for itself, and some even eat their own babies. 

As a result of all the cannabalism and fighting, many are missing arms and legs. The first one we came across was a particularly big croc called Stumpy who was missing a back foot and had a hole in his snout from a recent fight.

They can grow up to 6m long and move very fast in the water. At one point we were taking pictures of Stumpy who was several metres away, and the next moment he had appeared right in front of us and we were standing quite close to the edge!! It was quite scary!!

The Adelaide River - you would never think there were 10000 crocs in there!!

The following are pictures of Stumpy:

We then saw a hatchling who was around 1 year old called Fluffy; he was camouflaged by the dirt on the bank as certain birds can catch them and eat them too:

Another croc we saw was called Casanova:

On the way back they threw the remaining bits of meat out and Shearwater birds swooped down and caught them.

Although the different types of crocs are called saltwater and freshwater crocodiles, they are found in either type of water. The salties are the nasty ones that will kill you; the freshies might take a finger or two. To finish, our guide told us a story about a group of female travellers who came on the tour and said that they had been tasting the water of various swimming holes on their travels through Australia - if it was freshwater then they would go for a swim!!! The guide told them they were lucky not to have been attacked....

We drove back to Darwin and handed the car back (without any issues!) and got an early night, as the next day we were due to catch the Ghan train to the Red Centre...