Lots of crocs

I’m currently on a four day tour of places near Darwin. Judging by yesterday, they’re trying to include too much. We kept on being late for everything (including lunch, where it had already been taken away before we got there). The bus driver was about half an hour late picking us up, and I guess we were about half an hour behind from then on.

First up, we went to the Adelaide River 

(over 1600 or 2000 crocodiles, depending on who you ask) for a cruise down the river while being closely monitored by the crocodiles. It’s advertised as the jumping crocodiles tour. Several named crocodiles, including Stumpy, Candy and Doris, came zooming out to the boat when it stopped in their part of the river. Doris is the one with a stick. They often lie in the river with sticks in their mouth at this time of year, hoping that cormorants will try to take the stick for a nest.

The second person manning the boat dangled strings of buffalo meat from a rod and enticed the crocodiles to go up in the air to catch it. After a performance, the crocodile got its meat, and we went further downstream. 

You may notice that Doris (the crocodile jumping) has only one front leg. Stumpy had one and a half legs left. They often lose legs when they fight. 

The Adelaide river is a tidal river, and we were there in the morning at low tide. Because of this, we saw an extremely small crocodile, which would normally be hiding in the mangroves. Everything eats them (including cormorants) which is just as well since crocodiles produce enormous numbers of eggs.

On the way back, they attracted whistling kites by holding up pieces of meat, that the kites snatched in flight.

We also saw many corellas, cormorants and sea eagles.

Then we travelled to Kakadu National Park, a world heritage site (one of the few which is sited for both natural and cultural values). I went on the plane trip over the park, including the Ranger Uranium mine,

the savannah woodlands 

the stone country 

and the wetlands that are visited by 1% of the world’s migratory birds.

Later, we visited the Ubirr, but stopped at Cahill’s Crossing on the way. This is where the road crosses a river and the cars have to go through water. It’s got concrete, and it’s not much of a dip at this time of year. There are notices saying no pedestrians are allowed on the crossing itself, so someone and his kids were in the water on the crossing, fishing. With at least seven crocodiles looking on.

Ubirr is a rock art wonderland, with rock art probably at least 20,000 years old. There’s a lookout where you can take great pictures of the sunset. I checked out as much rock art as I could instead. The rest of the bus was more interested in the sunset. One of the pictures was of a thylocine - which became extinct in this area at least 4000 years ago. 

It would have been a difficult place to paint.