We had just finished a fantastic evening barbecue at
\nour Kakadu hostel. Most of us were settling in for an evening of
\ndrinking, talking and fighting off insects around the camp fire. <\/p>\n
“Come on everyone, let’s go croc spotting”
\nthe hostel host said enthusiastically. <\/p>\n
“Croc spotting?” someone exclaimed
\n“but it’s night time?” <\/p>\n
“Well, you don’t have to if you don’t want
\nto” he said somewhat disheartened before adding. “I
\njust thought you’d like to! Kakadu is another world at night!” <\/p>\n
He paused to think of what else he could say to sway
\nthose hesitant. <\/p>\n
“You don’t know when you will be
\nback? But I’ll leave it up to you. I will be leaving in 10
\nminutes which will give you enough time to grab a jumper, a torch and
\nput on a pair of walking shoes. Therefore, if you decide to come, you
\ncan meet me at the hostel gate”. <\/p>\n
I already knew that I wanted to go night croc spotting.
\nAfter all, I didn’t come all this way to miss out on
\nanything. Off we headed into the darkness, a mini bus-load of city
\ndwellers led by a bearded, bare-footed reptile lover along a moon lit
\ndirt track in search of salt-water crocodiles. After a 15 minute walk
\nwhich involved brief stops to look at the local flora and fauna
\nincluding a spider which could have easily slapped someone with one of
\nits huge legs, we arrived at a causeway. <\/p>\n
“This is close enough I think” said
\nour host. The causeway can be crossed by foot during the dry season,
\nbut as we weren’t quite in this season yet the causeway still
\nhad water rushing over it. Apparently it was a great fishing area.
\nUnfortunately, we were told that only the week before a young boy was
\ntaken by a crocodile while fishing with his father here. <\/p>\n
Our host spotlighted the causeway with his torch. We
\nwere about 50 feet away from it. A long, rough, grey croc tail
\ndisappeared over some rocks. This brought gasps of ‘wow’. It truly was
\nan incredible sight to see a crocodile in its natural habitat. He then
\nscanned the river with his torch. <\/p>\n
“Look” he said excitedly “see those
\ntwo orange snake eyes?” <\/p>\n
I squinted into the darkness until I saw those two
\norange spots. <\/p>\n
“Well that’s a croc” he said
\n“and a bloody big one too”. <\/p>\n
“How can you tell?” someone asked. <\/p>\n
“The larger the eyes the bigger the croc.
\nI’d say that one is at least 6 foot long, even
\nmore”. <\/p>\n
“Wow” someone said. Wow seemed to
\nbe the word of the evening as most of us stumbled for words describe
\nwhat we were seeing. <\/p>\n
The area turned out to be mission control for our
\ncrocodile spotting. We all took turns standing next to our host looking
\nat those illuminated, transparent, marble-like eyes. They were
\nhypnotising. I felt like a kangaroo staring into some headlights. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"\/\/globetrotters.co.uk\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/pictures\/2005-10-enews-image004.jpg\")
More
\npairs of orange marbles appeared hovering in the darkness ahead of us.
\nThere must have been at least a dozen. No doubt, the buggers were
\nthinking, food, succulent live food of all shapes and sizes, all
\nwaiting for an underwater roll. I was glad they were all over there and
\nwe were here. <\/p>\n
“Have you ever smelt croc before?” our host
\nsuddenly asked. <\/p>\n
“No” someone said, and I thought, I don’t
\nthink I want to. <\/p>\n
“Can you smell that briny, salty water smell?” <\/p>\n
I stuck my nose out into the darkness and let the smell
\nfill my nostrils. It was an odour I was familiar with. It was similar
\nto the smell of drying seaweed on a beach. Yeah I can smell that briny,
\nsalty water smell which intensified the longer I smelt it. No cause for
\nalarm though I thought, after all, we have kept our distance. <\/p>\n
“RUN” our host yelled. <\/p>\n
It took a few seconds for what our host just said to
\nregister, but when it did, I and everyone else joined our host high
\ntailing it back up the track. Whether this was a joke or not I am not
\nsure. However, if you take a trip into Kakadu and your host of the
\nhostel asks you to come for a walk to do some night croc spotting make
\nsure you stay behind him at all times. <\/p>\n
We had just finished a fantastic evening barbecue at our Kakadu hostel. Most of us were settling in for an evening of drinking, talking and fighting off insects around the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","css_class_manager_body_classes":"","css_class_manager_use_in_post_loop":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-article"],"yoast_head":"\n