9/19: Darwin: Jumping Crocs & Wild Pigs

 So many options for day trips from Darwin, it was hard to pick. We didn’t want to make the 3 hour drive each way to the famous Kakadu National Park just to spend most of the day in the car and not having sufficient time to really take in the park’s sights. An expression among Darwinians is ‘Litchfield – do, Kaka – don’t’ so we didn’t either.

Drove instead on the Arnhem Hwy, the only highway in the NT of note, toward the Window on the Wetlands Visitor Centre so we could learn about the wetland ecosystem as well as the local Aboriginal people.

Even in the dry season, there were signs of new life on the otherwise dead looking tree.

Some moderately interesting displays in the Visitors' Centre.

Neill and Al: You'll have to come fishing here in the Northern Territory!

There were great views of the Adelaide River floodplain from the observation deck. Lake Beatrice is an artificial lake constructed in 1994 with islands created as a sanctuary for waterbirds and the rotting trees left for roosting platforms.

Water buffalo only seen via my zoom lens in the distance.

Chinese Walls: Chinese labor was used to plant sugar cane and coffee here in 1882, both of which did very well. The walls were built to keep out cattle and horses out of the crops.

 Only one tree had these stunning flowers on it then; you’d have to come during the Wet to view all the trees in bloom – what a gorgeous sight that must be.

The Window on the Wetlands Visitors Centre

Croc jumping anyone?

Had kept seeing signs for jumping crocs trips we could make with a variety of outfitters in the area. Have never seen a jumping crocs show so it sounded like an absolute blast! All the companies offer tours at the exact same times but leave from different locations along the Adelaide River.

Just getting there was part of the adventure, we figured!

Got here at last!

We were again very lucky that they had plenty of seats available for the 1pm departure for people walking up with no reservations; phew, as we’d hated to have waited another 2 plus hours for the 3pm departure. The company is owned by 2 brothers, Harry, our captain, and Morgan Bowman, who have run the business for over 30 years and seem to know every inch, and, every crocodile, of that part of the Adelaide River. 

Harry, our captain, laid out the safety rules from the get go which we appreciated. There could be no hanging over the side of the pontoon boat as ‘these things (the crocs) will eat you.’ No one attempted to hang over after hearing that! Sure glad we knew the safety rules when we saw this first crocodile (croc after this), a female! Harry explained that it wasn’t the crocodile's teeth that cause so much danger, it was the smashing of the jaw because of its incredible strength.

Harry pointed out that pretty well all the crocs he ‘knows’ in that section of Adelaide River are maimed in one way or another; for instance, he showed one had a back leg that was bitten off by another croc, another that had a lower jaw missing, one had an eye gouged out by a catfish, etc.

Crocs are 7 times faster than humans, another reason they’re so dangerous, and that’s why Harry mentioned he’s licensed to carry a gun on his boat. Luckily the brothers have never had any sort of problem in all their years of showing tourists the jumping crocs. It was interesting the number of Australians we met who made a point of proudly saying that 'their' country does not allow people to carry.

Only 1% of crocs now survive in the wild, Harry said, because of the cane toads that have devastated crocs and so much of Australia’s wildlife since being introduced from Hawaii in 1973 (?). Just twenty years before the cane toad arrived, there were 3,000 crocs in the river. I asked Harry of course how may were estimated to still be living but he could only give vague numbers. He was particularly disparaging about the government’s non response to the dangerous cane toads which eat everything they come across. He said that the government had put up a 5K km long fence to prevent dingoes or wild dogs (remember the sign of the dingoes I had photographed at the Uluru airport?) from crossing into other areas of Australia but refused to do the same for the cane toads; he feared that within a couple of decades there would be no croc jumping businesses at all in the area because of the effects of the cane toads.

The way the jumping croc 'show' worked was this: Harry would alternate, before moving to another spot on the river, which side he would dangle a huge chunk of meat on a long pole over one side of the boat; if you sat on that side of the boat, you needed to sit down at all times. Meanwhile, the passengers on the opposite side could stand on their seats to get the best photos they could. It was certainly a fair system he and Morgan came up with.

The brothers can only operate 6 months a year, from May til about October or when the rains come, i.e. during the Dry, as the road to their business is washed out during the Wet.  As Harry, above, said said ‘rain is the killer for their business as no one can come in on the road. Therefore they run tours 4 times a day, 7 days a week during the Dry, regardless of whether there’s only one person wanting to go on any of their tours. Their philosophy is that ‘You’ve driven all this way out here, we’ll take you on the tour.’ What fantastic customer service I thought. As it turned out, there were enough tourists there at 1 pm to warrant Morgan bringing people out on the second boat too.

A severe case of 'hat head.'

Sure seemed like the safety rules on Morgan's boat were far laxer than on ours as harry would never have allowed people to have their arms extended over the side of the boat where the croc was.

It was great fun seeing the two brothers trying to attract the same croc to their boats for their respective passengers. Morgan mostly won out, it seemed,, in this friendly 'competition,'

Harry pointed to a mangrove swamp on the other side of the river and said it acts as natural A/C and cools the water near it by 4-5 degrees. The photo disappeared when I clicked on 'Add caption' - sorry about that.

From here, Harry  pointed to a spot upriver, located 80 kms from the ocean, which had the biggest barramundi fish farm, 32,000 in all, in the whole of Australia.

Next croc we saw was Brutus, above, who’s 90 and weighs 1.5 tons. Harry mentioned that a photographer from Getty Images was paid USD 30,000 last year for his photo of Brutus which was distributed to 300 newspapers worldwide!

Harry mentioned that there are 16 species of crocs in the world and that they are a protected animal in his country. The largest one ever recorded was killed by a woman in 1947.  Crocs adjust their body temp 60% of the time to the rest mode.

Crocs breathe through their skin and have a 4 chamber heart so they can stay underwater for hours. Harry said the crocs can hear the boats coming and consider them floating restaurants!

Crocs are ‘opportunistic’ eaters; you never see them without food as there’s a plentiful food supply for them in the river with 20 different varieties of fish including bull sharks, herring, barramundi, etc. Harry and his brother, Morgan, feed the crocs large chunks of buffalo meat normally whereas other croc businesses feed them vermin or chicken carcasses reportedly.

Harry advised against swimming in Darwin’s harbor as there are over 200 crocs there. His philosophy about swimming where crocs might be present: always make sure there are lots of people swimming there already AND to stay in the middle of the crowd! Sounds like great advice, we thought.

The croc nest, above and below, is where female crocs lay eggs once a year. There is an 81 day incubation period. Male crocs grow 3 times faster than females.

It was high tide during our 1pm tour so we couldn’t take photos of crocs sunning themselves on the river bank.

The Adelaide River Cruises 75 minute croc jumping tour was a wonderful way to learn all we ever wanted to know about crocs and was a great way to get up and close to the jumping crocs for great photos!

 Back again on the long desolate road.

Our next destination was the Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve where, according to the guidebook, there are ‘ludicrous’ numbers of water birds living here.’ We sure didn’t see THAT many but that was probably because we weren’t there from December-July when bird numbers are highest.

Photos below from the narrow Fogg Dam road.

Think I may have liked these lily pads, Mindy?!

An egret.

There was a fairly short (3.6 km) but wonderful nature walk we took through another monsoon forest.

Wonder if these rings indicate the age of the tree?

Don't know what this is, but it sure is different.

An elevated walkway – necessary, we thought, during the Wet. 
Coming from the deep, dark and quiet monsoon forest immediately into the wide open floodplain where we could hear a cacophony of bird song was jarring.

Off to the left, could see these smallish, wild pigs that ran at a fast clip when they heard the walkers behind us yakking up a storm – what a shame the pigs had been disturbed as it was so peaceful and serene til then.

Right back into the monsoon forest again after just a few yards.

 I am sure the official name of the tree is not 'Spiky Tree' but it seemed apropos.

After having been so busy for days, it was nice to call it quits after the Conservation Reserve and head back to Darwin while it was still light out.

Couldn't resist popping our heads in though at the self-proclaimed 'World Famous Humpty Doo Hotel and bar on the way back.

Back 'home' in our hotel parking lot, I saw one of the filthiest trucks we've ever seen. Must have been off roading in the Top End.

Posted from Ubud, in Bali, Indonesia on 9/28.