Crocodile Hunters

Okay, okay, we couldn't resist it. Faced with a crocodile infested river and given with the opportunity to take a pleasure cruise, well, it was just too tempting.

So we boarded the so-called river train on the north bank of the Daintree, which we approached by walking down a jetty moored at the end of somebody's garden.

The somebody was called Steve, as many Australians tend to be. He'd built a house on this plot of land, in between the vines and the palms and the towering trees, but he hadn't got round to finishing it yet because he'd been too busy doing other things so it had become a bit of a work in progress.

Now Steve's wife must be the understanding kind and she must be an aussie because the parts of the house he hasn't got around to finishing include the windows, which have no actual glass in them, just some plastic sheeting hanging in strips and blowing about in the wind.

"You must get lots of insects in there?" I asked

"Oh sure" he replied. "and snakes and bats, but you get used to it. And anyway, the snakes eat pests like mice and rats so I don't mind them fellas, they're not poisonous and they'll not bother you"

"Sounds like hard living" said Darren. I'd lost concentration because Ella was in one of those moods and was trying to escape down the jetty and straight into the crocodile swamp.

"Yeah" he went on. "We get our electricity from a generator and our water from a rain strorage tank because we can't use bore water living so close to the river here. We get plenty of rain but one year the tank got down to 10%, I guess that's the lowest we ever got. The main problem we have is when the river floods in the wet season and then the waters receed and we find the crocodiles further inland, you know, like in the garden here, looking for food".

Crikey.

Anyway, we boarded the river train and headed off down the Daintree, which was a mixed experience because Ella's mood and behaviour continued for the next hour and her main goal seemed to be throwing herself off the (open) end of the boat.

Still, we spotted some crocs - this is "Fat Albert", the dominant male in this section of the river. Can't think how he got his name but I bet it takes ages to iron his shirts.