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By Gavin Tyte
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Northern Australia is home to the saltwater crocodile or ‘saltie’. An average male saltie is between 4 and 5 metres long and is potentially a very dangerous animal. Increased tourism in the Northern Territory is putting more humans in close proximity to these reptilian monsters. Although attacks are rare, they do happen.
I picked up a copy of the Northern Territory News and that very week there had been two saltwater crocodile attacks. In the first incident, a woman had been snatched from her tent by a 4.5 metre long crocodile. Her husband chased it, poked it in the eyes and it let go of her. Amazingly, she survived the attack. In the second attack, a crocodile had snatched a man from the side of a river. Again, he managed to escape. Reading about these attacks freaked me out so much that I decided I needed to take precautions. I made a mental note not to read any more newspapers.
Despite being home to over 10,000 crocodiles, Kakadu is a great place to explore. There are stunning vistas, billabongs, waterfalls and walks. I had a great time visiting the sites and watching the wildlife. On one afternoon I managed to view the landscape from the co-pilot’s seat of a Cessna airplane.
There is good fishing in the park too with the mighty barramundi being the prized quarry. One man I hitched with was on his way to a ranger station to report being chased by a crocodile. He was fishing in one of the billabongs and his lure got snagged on a fallen tree trunk that was leaning down into the water. He climbed down the trunk to retrieve his lure and was chased back up it by a crocodile. I couldn’t imagine that the rangers would be impressed. The visitor guide warned visitors not to harass the crocodiles and this definitely sounded like crocodile harassment to me.
I was in Kakadu at the end of the dry season. At that time of year, water is scarce and all the wildlife gathers at the permanent water holes. I took a boat trip on Yellow Water and I have never seen so much wildlife in one place. The water teamed with huge catfish, barramundi and smaller fish. Snakes and monitor lizards roamed the banks. Innumerable crocodiles sank slowly as the boat approached. The bird life was incredible. We saw jabirus, cranes, sea eagles, herons, kingfishers, magpie geese, and flocks of budgies, shags, and snakebirds. We even saw a sea eagle trying to steal snake from jabiru.
On one of the nights in the park, I camped by the edge of a billabong. Two rangers stopped by at dusk with flashlights. I asked them what they were doing and they told me that they were counting the crocodiles in this particular billabong. They told me that despite there being a couple of crocodiles that were just four metres long, they re-assured me that I was quite safe due to the steep bank. I’m not sure if they were having me on, but that night was quite possibly the worst nights sleep I experienced in Australia. In the quiet of the night, I could hear loud splashes in the water and I half expected to end up as a secret midnight snack at a reptilian pyjama party.
Spending time in the Northern Territory gave me a new respect for the pecking order in God’s creation. With all our technology and civilisation, it is easy for us to become complacent and think that human beings are somehow superior and untouchable. The fact is that our soft, pink bodies are vulnerable – not just to crocodiles, but to disease, accidents and other forces of nature. We live in a world where chaos exists – the chaos of suffering and pain. God’s plan, since the very beginning, has been to bring order out of chaos and we are to be part of that plan. I’m not sure about the wisdom of trying to bring order to a large, toothy saltwater crocodile, but it’s a good reminder that the process is not yet complete!
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