Snappy

Within five minutes of the boat leaving the jetty, I'd spotted a dead fish floating on the water right beside the boat. And then I leaned over to get a look and watched as a crocodile popped his head up and took a bite of it.

The river was absolutely teeming with them; far greater in number than we'd seen in any river in the far north of Queensland, which perhaps suggests a difference in how successfully they manage to survive in the two places (you may remember their breeding cycle is being disrupted in Queensland because they get thrown into crocodile jail when they wash up on the beaches).

Now I'm well aware of the power of these things and of how they're incredible in that they haven't altered in any way for over a million years (though I suppose life's pretty cushy at the top of the food chain and there's no real need to adapt in order to survive), but all the same, I just don't like them.

I mean, I can cope when they're sunning themselves on the river bank like these two specimens, but when they start bobbing up in the water or easing themselves backwards down that river bank, I just want out and I go into fear mode, which I've now discovered involves the involuntary stamping of my feet accompanied by a noise that sounds a lot like biddee biddee biddee coming out of my mouth (and this goes some way towards explaining how they've stayed at the top of the food chain because the sound of a whitefella stamping his feet and saying bidee bidee bidee probably rings out like a dinner bell to snappy and his mate here; less Pavlov's dog, more Pavlov's croc).

Anyway, Trisha's not scared of them, as she started telling us in one of her yarns, all of which she promises are true (and I believe her).

"You see them spiky palm?" she said, pointing to some stubby trees with leaves hanging into the water. "Well we local tribeswomen, we hunter just like the menfolk round here. Even though my life a lot like you mob, I got mortgage, car payment coming out of my ear an' all that, I still learn traditional hunting when I was a girl and when I have a kid, that kid gonna learn the same culture. If you got culture, you pass it on 'cos without you culture, you got nothin' left"

I thought about what she'd said for a minute, half-pondering what sort of culture I'm passing onto Ella and half wondering where on earth she'd find room for a pregnancy as she was already at least the size of two average women combined, though I don't suppose that kind of thing concerns Trisha and her mob and it certainly doesn't stop her feasting on her favorite tucker, the magpie goose, for which she claims to represent the number one predator, yum yum.

"The main influence in my life as an aboriginal woman, that's my mother and my nana. Without these two women Trisha wouldn't be the woman she is today" she continued. "The aboriginal woman go hunting in these water for snake. Them snake's a tasty treat alright - yum yum! And you find 'em right there under that spiky palm.

First we get in the water stamping our feet and clapping our hand above our head to scare off them crocodile, then we see the snake and grab him with both hand. After that, we gotta break his neck by putting his head in our mouth and biting real hard like this"

She acted the whole thing out with a look of determination on her face, exactly like a woman who's trying to break the neck of a snake by putting his head into her mouth, if you can imagine that.

"And when he dead, we throw him on the river bank and look for another. My nana throw me in the water exactly like that when I was seven year old and I gonna do exactly the same to my kid 'cos he gotta learn my culture".

There was a stunned silence when she'd finished. The elderly lady behind us was the first to pipe up with polite conversation about her grandson, who's sailing on the crew of the Young Endeavour, which progressed to talking about the heat and revealing that some towns in Australia regularly see temperatures around the 50 degree mark, which the weather bureau aren't allowed to report in case it scares the tourists off.

I think the snake story was a yarn too far for the khaki tourists, but we loved it.