Today's story was inspired by a recent trip to Darwin and Kakadu National Park. It will be told in 3 acts, all centered around crocodiles because, if you want to keep all your limbs while travelling in northern Australia, crocodiles should always be on your mind.
Act 1: Freshwater Salties
Saltwater crocodiles, or "salties" as the locals call them, are a misnomer. While they have no problem living in saltwater, they tend to spend the wet season in freshwater. Our most recent trip to the Northern Territory was during the transition from the dry to the wet season, so no body of water, salty or not, was safe. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Arriving air travelers aren't greeted by crocodiles, so we had nothing to worry about after taking a surprisingly long (4 hours & 20 minutes) flight from Melbourne.
After gathering the essentials (sandwich-making materials, snacks, and beer) following a night's rest in Darwin, Linnea and I headed east for Kakadu National Park. For those who haven't heard of it, Kakadu is a massive (more than twice the size of Yellowstone) and extremely diverse national park. The local Aboriginal people, who own the land but lease it to the government, have called Kakadu home for more than 65,000 years! Think about that for a second. That's more than 250 times longer than the US has existed. Wow. The Aboriginal influence was obvious at the first stop we made, which was a short walk at Ubirr, a site famous for its rock art. Along with the rock art, we got to enjoy our first nice view of the park. This view hinted at the diversity of the park with forests, rocky outcroppings, marshes, and prairies all within sight.
We woke early after our first night in the park; we had a big day planned and we had signed up for a cruise on the Yellow River. The first cruise of the day was rumoured to be the best because the animals are still active, not yet bothered by the rising sun. That ended up being completely true. The sun was low and behind clouds for much of the cruise, keeping the air temperature comfortable. However, by the end of the two hour cruise, the sun was hot and high in the sky, which meant many animals would find shade for the day. Fortunate timing aside, this cruise was spectacular. We buzzed around the river and wetlands area in a pontoon and saw so many animals. Crocodiles were the highlight, but we got to see wallabies, buffalo, wild pigs, and many, many species of birds, including a pretty magnificent sea eagle. At one point, a massive crocodile (see above) was swimming alongside the boat when he decided to come say hi. By "say hi," I mean he swam at the boat. By "swam at the boat," I mean he swam directly at me (I'm pretty sure he licked his lips while doing this, but don't have proof). After it was made clear that salties can be 6 meters long and have the strongest bite force recorded in the animal kingdom, you know I backed away from the railing of the pontoon. He may not have gotten me, but he certainly scared me. Crocodiles 1, Ben 0.
Act 2: Crocodile Unseen
Maybe the scariest part about crocodiles is their stealthiness. They can move through the water silently and strike rapidly, or they can remain still and be camouflaged, waiting for something (or someone) to come a little too close. Considering the rest of our time in Kakadu involved hiking in remote parts of the park, we had to keep the stealth of the crocs in mind. Not that this was difficult - there were many signs reminding hikers to stay away from the water. There was no excuse to lose track of the danger.
Dangerous animals nearby or not, we were safe while we were in our car. There's something excellent about driving off road through the red dirt of the Australian outback. It feels so Australian. I can't describe it much better than that. I guess when something "feels Australian" to me, I generally mean that it feels like an adventure. Growing up, Australia had this adventurous mystique to it. I think a lot of Americans feel that way, and that feeling has not completely gone away for me. We spent much of the rest of our time in the park reveling in this adventurous mystique, taking our 4 wheel drive rental car off road, hiking to secluded water holes, and viewing Aboriginal rock art. These secluded watering holes were stunning - Gunlom waterfall had a natural infinity pool at the top, Maguk Gorge was crystal clear and surrounded by sheer rock walls. However, crocodiles unseen meant that we didn't explore as much of Maguk Gorge as we would've liked to. Crocodiles aren't typically in the gorge during the season we visited, but we weren't willing to risk anything more than jumping into the water and quickly scrambling back up the rocks. Crocodiles 2, Ben 0.
Act 3: Wranglin' Reptiles
To say that I wrangled reptiles would be giving myself way too much credit, but I'm going to stick with it because it's alliterative. Instead of wrangling a crocodile, I held a baby one (it was just a foot long but the mouth still had to be taped shut) and fed a few of them. There's a wildlife park in Darwin called Crocosaurus Cove that showcases many crocodiles among other reptiles. The most famous attraction here is the so-called 'Cage of Death' where you are put in a glass cylinder and dropped into the water with a 5 meter long adult crocodile. On the day we visited, the crocodiles couldn't be bothered that there were people in their enclosure. The cage did, however, have claw marks on it, hinting at some truly terrifying past crocodile encounters.
Getting to feed the crocodiles and witness their incredible bite force was remarkable. It was especially great to be able to experience this without putting myself in any sort of danger, meaning the final score for this trip was Crocodiles 2, Ben 1. I'm happy that I kept the score close when my opponent was a living dinosaur.