Waking with the birds seems to be the theme at the moment . Got down to a chilly 16.4 degrees this morning , and up to 34 degrees at 3:15 pm .
Todays journey wasn’t far , and taught us a lot - we got to learn about crocodile safety !!
We arrived for our 9am cruise at 8:40 as required , and waited patiently for the 4 cruise boats to come back , before we could start . They were all out on the sunrise cruise , and there were lots of them . The choice of 9am cruise turned out to be a good one , only one boat going out , with a few seats to spare - about 60 seats on the boat .
Starting off , we cruise down Yellow Waters to the South Alligator River - there weren’t any alligators , but plenty of Saltwater Crocodiles , lots of birds , and some good size Barramundi swimming around . Nothing in this food chain is missing out , everything is fat !!! We saw white bellied Sea Eagles , Egrets , Cormorants , Kingfishers , Herons , Night Herons , Whistling Ducks , Kakadu Ducks , Jabiru and Brolga’s . We got to see a male Jabiru eat a snake , got stared down by a female Jabiru - the male has dark eyes , the female yellow eyes .
The highlight would have had to be seeing so many Saltwater Crocodiles - the smallest about 1.5m , up to 6m long !! They can pull down a full grown buffalo , no mean feat !!! then we see people out in very small tinnies going fishing - most of these crocs are bigger than the tinnies , lucky they’re well fed !!
We cruised slowly up & down the river & lagoon spotting the birds & crocs , reflections in the water were amazing , with the sun beating down on us , it was getting very hot , but the boat turned every now & then giving us some shade to cool off a bit . Our guide - Porsche - was excellent , giving all of her knowledge about the lagoon & river and especially crocs .
She took us up the river looking for one particular croc , which we found stamping his authority over all the other crocs in the vicinity . He was about 6m long , quietly went up to a smaller female & chased her off , before swimming quite happily beside the boat for about 200m . We found another couple of crocs up on the bank just sunning themselves , we were taken to within a couple of metres off them , before old mate caught up with us . The boat reversed out , while old mate quietly slipped under water , Porsche thought something was about to happen , she positioned the boat nicely so that we could all observe . The old fella quietly swam up behind the other 5m croc , and slowly , slowly crept up on it , then pounced !! the 5m croc lifted it’s head in submission & took off at a great rate of knots , old mate chased him off - we didn’t see the 5m croc again - he was hiding , old mate retired to a section of the bank near some aquatic pandanus tree . There was some natural selection live !!!
Our 2 hour cruise was over before we knew it , and was awesome to see nature at it’s wildest !!
We headed off to have some lunch and then go to Cooinda for some road information and a nice refreshing swim . The water was refreshing again , but we hopped out , dried off , warmed up and got back in again . Suitably cooled off , we headed back to the RV and had some salsa & beer , before retiring for the day relaxed and cool .
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