Billabong Cruise

Shopping cart for crocs

A bona fide croc cruise was our first stop on the safari.

Ted, our leathery guide, had some hard and fast opinions. He was a self-proclaimed man of the bush and assured in the ways of mother earth. We found him entertaining and a willing banter participant.

I felt bad for Ted because everything he said was totally lost on half of the boat. Our Dutch and German friends had very limited experience with English. As proof, Ted had just finished a spirited safety briefing culminating in one final life saving point – Don’t Stand Up in the Boat. Over the next five minutes, as the boat idled in water teeming with 500 pound man-eating crocs, each Dutch and German stood up in successive order as Ted rolled his eyes and through a one-sided smile conveyed the idea of “screw it, this is just survival of the fittest and English speaking.”

Awwwe look-at-ahh... she's a beeuueauty

When it comes to crocodiles Ted was a bit of a preacher. He had a 5 minute rant on the late Steve Irwin. Although some of what he said made sense I got the impression it was fueled by jealously. His main issue was the environment that Irwin placed crocs into. Crocs have no internal temperature control and according to Ted, if their bodies are much below 86 degrees or much above 89 degrees, they will slowly die. Ted says that Irwin would simply take crocs into arenas in southern Australia where the low temperatures would basically put them into a vegetative state. He said that Irwin would approach large crocs will full knowledge that they could not attack him – the crocs didn’t have enough energy. He felt that Irwin would never want the audience to know that because tickets sales to shows would plummet. Although much of this is probably true, it was deeply disturbing to hear him lambast a dead guy. And in my in my personal opinion, although Steve Irwin probably embellished the experience for his shows, he most certainly did more good for the future of crocs and the rest Australia’s environment by garnering massive global awareness.

We did see a number of crocs on the cruise, but as you might imagine, they are pretty sneaky and I'd see a pair of eyes on the surface and then try to get Amy's attention and the eyes would have disappeared. I can only imagine how unnerving that would be if you had tried to do your own two person cruise in a small wooden boat.

As we would comment throughout our trip, the variety and size of the birds on the trip was amazing. While on the croc cruise I kept waiting for the birds on the bank of the river to go under with one big gulp of a croc. It never happened, but we learned that it does happen. Basically, the birds get complacent after a longtime without a croc attack. They begin to gallivant around the bank without keeping an eye out for danger. Then SMACK! Stupid birdbrains.

Heron? Crane? I'm not much of a birder.

Shade tree perch

Ted

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