While
we were in nice, cool, Sydney, we discussed our plans of driving north to
Darwin with our hosts, Peter and Elizabeth. While we were having to wear
jackets in Sydney, we were checking the weather in Darwin, and it was already
getting to be in the 90’s (Fahrenheit) (around 32-ish Celsius). I
remember saying something like, “well, at least we can go for a swim.”
“But you can’t!” exclaimed Elizabeth. I was confused – why not?
“Because there are crocodiles, there!”
And then,
when we got close to Darwin, our Darwin friends, Dennis and Anne, told us about
this lovely place, Edith Falls, where one could swim – they remove any
crocodiles, periodically, so that people CAN swim.
Here’s
a shot of some of the falls in the park, on the trail that we went on to get to
the pool just above these falls, to swim:
And
here’s a shot of the pool that we swam in, with another waterfall behind me and
the Cure JM (Juvenile Myositis) banner:
Dennis
encouraged us to take a tour to see the crocodiles, even if it’s a bit
artificial, as the crocodiles are in the wild, and they are rather spectacular.
Click here to
see a 16 second video of a crocodile in action on our little tour on the
Adelaide River. Here are a couple of still shots. First, the
approaching crocodile; note the shape of the head:
Next,
the jump – these guys are amazing – their tails are almost the same length as
their bodies, and they use them to launch their bodies out of the water:
I
love that you can see his back legs just at the water level, his left “arm”
with those long sharp claws down by his side as he also uses that to
create momentum upward, and, those nice sharp teeth. This next shot shows
what it looks like with his back toward you:
And
then this one, with the arm thrust down, and the full set of teeth:
And
here’s a close-up of the teeth:
This
next guy is much older, and bigger:
and he doesn’t have much
in the way of teeth left:
(and
he’s also missing his right front leg, and is known as “Brutus”). Note
how “gummy” his mouth is. . .
Here’s
another beauty on the river shore:
And
a close-up of a baby crocodile:
Oh,
and while looking at this little guy, there were these other creatures running
around in the mud:
They’re
called mudskippers. There are three of them in the above picture.
The above is a close-up – for size comparison, note the nearby leaf.
So,
back to the crocodiles, they are wild, and while they don’t *depend* on
these tasty morsels provided by the tour operators, they certainly are
encouraged to show themselves and participate in the revelry.
We
saw one crocodile, completely in the wild, at this billabong (a pond):
for which there was the
following warning:
Since we’d seen
so many of these signs (pretty much, everywhere where there was water), we may
have had a little bit of a casual response to the sign. We had gone there
to check out the gorgeous birds. We weren’t at the water’s edge, but we
were getting somewhat close to it, when all of a sudden, we all spotted a very
large crocodile coming our way. We all decided that we weren’t interested
in being lunch for the croc, so moved away, without, I’m sad to say, a picture.
. .
So,
with these crocodile images firmly in our heads, what better thing to do than
to go some place for a swim? It was, after all, very, very hot, with
temperatures at least 95F (35C), and definitely reaching over 100F (38C),
frequently. We decided to do a hike to Jim Jim Falls, which required us
to go on a road for 4 wheel drive cars, only. Some roads specified
whether the 4WD had to be high clearance or not. This one required high
clearance during some times of the year. We thought that we would try it,
and were successful in getting to the trailhead for Jim Jim Falls. At the
trailhead, we noticed the following two signs:
talking
about how they manage the crocodiles so that we’ll be safe swimming in the pool
at Jim Jim Falls, and:
that
introduced the concept of two different types of crocodiles, which we only
fully understood, later in our trip.
One
of the first things we noticed on our hike was a crocodile trap:
This
picture of the trap was on our way out – and it was sprung! We wondered
if a crocodile had, indeed, been caught in it, but we couldn’t tell.
Looking
ahead to Jim Jim Falls:
Here’s
a shot of where the falls would be if there were falls, from the pool of water
in which we were swimming:
And
then, another shot from that same pool, looking back to where we’d hiked n
from:
We did a lot of climbing
over rocks to get into this pool. There is a pool with a nice sandy beach
on the other side of the rocks just at the end of this pool. And
soon after we arrived, so did several families, some Australian, and one
American family doing some travelling similar to ours. We got some tips
for other “must see” places, and headed back.
Dennis
and Anne had told us to tour Katherine Gorge, so that was our next day’s stop.
There are several gorges, here, and we didn’t have enough time to go
through all 3 gorges, but we were able to do the ½ day kayak through the 1st
gorge:
That’s my back.
You might note that I’m wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt – it was the only
way I could be comfortable in the searing sun and heat: I’d soak my shirt and
pants, and rewet them when they dried. The kayak was for a couple of
miles, and then we left the kayaks on the shore of the end of the 1st
gorge, and then went on a short little hike to the 2nd gorge for a
swim:
Rebecca
and Ed were happily cooling off.
Jay
swung around after the above picture, and took a picture of me with the Cure JM
banner:
There
are several things to note in the above picture. Firstly, I was swimming
in my long sleeves – enjoying being cool, and knowing that my shirt would be
dry soon after leaving the water – so why NOT use it for sun protection, as
well? Another thing to note is the silvery boat to the right of the picture.
There were tour boats that were in this 2nd gorge, and while
swimming, we had to look out for them. . . We could have kayaked,
further, but just didn’t have the time. And lastly, do you see that
beach-looking thing to the right of the picture? It is a nice sandy
beach, and when Ed and I swam up to it, we discovered that it had a “keep off –
crocodile nesting area” sign on it!!!! Ok, so this beach, that is off of
this pool of water that we’re swimming in is a crocodile nesting sight, but this
pool is safe to swim in? The mind is boggled. . .
Here’s
another picture looking up the gorge, and you can see that crocodile nesting
beach on the left:
with
beautiful red rock under foot. .
From
the water, I took the following shot in the other direction:
I
like the above picture, because it has Jay in it, looking at his surroundings,
giving perspective of the size of the surroundings.
Ah,
it was beautiful and cooling and pleasant, but we had to move on, so we took
the short hike back to the first gorge, and got in the kayaks we’d left on the
shore, and kayaked back:
Ed
and Rebecca, enjoying the shade, and the current taking them back.
Later,
as we drove west, but still in the Australia’s Northern Territory, we stayed in
a cabin at a caravan park that pretty much constituted the entire inland town
of Timber Creek. Here, they advertised that every day, they feed the
crocodiles, and here, the crocodiles were “freshies” – that is, freshwater
crocodiles (the second type that were mentioned on that Jim Jim Falls sign, way
above); and that is opposed to the “salties” that were pictured, above, which
are salt-water crocodiles.
One
of the most noticeable differences is the shape of their heads. Here’s
what the “freshie” head looks like:
The
snout is much narrower than the Saltie’s snout. One guy claimed that
these guys wouldn’t be able to kill us – that if they did grab an arm, they’d
break their snout, because it wasn’t as powerful as the Saltie’s snout. I
don’t know about that, but it does jive with that sign that suggests that
Salties can maime and kill, but Freshies only maime. . . However, I’m not
sure that I’m going to ever test that theory. . . Here, at this river,
they tempted the freshies with much smaller bits of meat than what we saw used
to tempt the salties.
Here’s
one freshie making his way over to us:
And
then another shot of one right next to the bridge where we were all standing,
while the one person tempted them with meat:
These
guys definitely didn’t launch their whole bodies out of the water as the
salties did.
And
with that, our crocodile adventures ended.
Here’s
to enjoying crocodiles from a position of safety!
Leora
