Hype, Hype, or The Crocodiles of Kakadu

For all my strictures about tackiness, and although I cling to my belief that building a hotel in the shape of a millennia old killing machine is the height thereof, I have to say that in every other respect the Crocodile Hotel in Kakadu was excellent. Efficient friendly staff, lovely rooms, great food and room service. We must all have looked totally wiped out when we arrived as we were given complimentary bottles of iced water the moment we hit the check in desk. And luckily the air con was efficient too. Have I mentioned at all that Kakadu was hot and humid? (waves flag to indicate joke)

 

Anyway Day 2 found us repeating a lot of what we had done on Day 1. Aboriginal art and a boat trip. It also exposed what a rubbish guide Ray was in a big way. For some reason known only to himself he swapped the itinerary round so that we went to see the rock art in the morning. When I say morning I mean at about 11.00 a.m. when the sun was getting towards its hottest. We had a 2 km walk to get to the site and when we got almost there and I realised that the last bit was going to be a steep scramble upwards I decided to go on strike and when everyone else moved off I stayed put. Ray did not notice this because he never bothered to count his passengers to make sure he had everyone with him, and he also showed a disturbing tendency to walk well ahead of everyone else, even the quickest of us, without looking back. I think he thought he was on an expedition into the interior with Burke and Wills. He was wrong.

 

They were ages and the sun and flies got troublesome but I was standing in a pretty enough place with lots of birdsong and so on, so I didn't get fed up. Then I heard exclamations of alarm (no it wasn't a crocodile, or even a snake) and the sound of slipping scree and a call of pain....turned out one of the group had slipped and fallen (possibly trying to get away from some of Ray's inaccurate droning about the art they were looking at) and broken her ankle. Two of the other members of the group carried her down the rest of the hill and towards where I had stayed. Several others discussed where it was best to put her down so that she would be safe, comfortable and in the shade, someone lent her a hat, someone else supplied paracetamol and water, a third provided a fan. Ray told her he had called the Park Rangers who would be along in their jeep in about 20 minutes and then began his route march back to our bus without a backward glance.

 

Until I wrote this down I had forgotten quite how angry this made me.

 

In the afternoon we went on another boat trip. This one guaranteed us a view of crocodiles, by the simple expedient of feeding the things. There was a lot of talk about how they recognise all the crocs on their piece of the river, make sure the food is evenly distributed and don't overfeed so that they don't become dependent. To which I say a rude word. They are there to make a quick buck by exploiting animals just as much as if they were running a circus. That said it was exciting to see the crocodiles up close, because for all the hype about not going nearer than 30 feet to the edges of any body of water throughout the region for fear of being pounced upon and dragged away by the crocodiles, this was the only occasion on which we actually saw them.

 

A few, not vey good, photos

 

 

So this was about 7.00 am. Came out of our room, lifted up camera to take photo and such was the heat it had already fogged up. Nice effect though.

 

A crocodile after Easy Meat.

 

And ditto

 

Crocodile River (not that it was actually called that)

 

some of Kakadu is fertile flood plain - they imported buffalo to raise in it. And tried growing rice. Neither venture was a huge success.

 

And here's a happy thing, a poster of all the different kinds of mosquito you are liable to find in Australia.

 

Then it was back to Darwin and farewell to Ray (thank goodness) just for the night, before we got ready to be picked up and taken off to board The Ghan!