I was not thinking of getting up close with large reptiles since my trip to Komodo Island, but another opportunity arose as I found myself in Darwin, Australia for work in September 2012, with a couple of offdays to explore the city.
Darwin is said to to be the drop-off point for the mining and offshore industry in Australia, and is also currently being used by the US Navy as a base for its Asia Pacific ops. This has resulted in a few things - rapid development of the city, better accessibility by budget carriers, more cultural diversity, and a lot more bars!
Upon further online research, I also discovered Darwin is the gateway to the Top End of Australia's nature parks. Due to time constraint, I opted for a full day tour of the wildlife and natural landscape of Litchfield Park, which included a jumping crocodile tour.
I'd have to admit this was possibly the best day tour I've had in my travels. The tour began at around 0630hrs in the morning with the crocodile feeding, and it was quite the experience cruising down the river and watching crocodiles jump over 1.5m high to grab a slab of ribs. A flimsy aluminium grill on the boat seperated us from the crocodiles, and had any of us tourists stuck an arm out beyond the grill, it was definitely going to be crocodile food. I'll let the pictures below do the describing. It was also interesting to know that the crocodiles were attracted by the sound from the boat motor, and had become "trained" to approach the boat whenever it brought its daily batch of tourists and meat.
The tour then continued with a visit to giant termite mounds, where the guide gave an extremely (information overload!) detailed account of how the termites created the mound, how they regulated the temperatues within the nest, breeding habits, why the mounds faced the sun etc... After an hour of his droning, roasting in 40 degree Celsius temperature and taking lots of pictures, we proceeded to have lunch at Wangi Falls, a lake fed by 2 waterfalls. The swim was refreshing, and the park rangers did a good job of keeping the crocodiles away. It was also nice to see a couple of attractive tourists get half naked and wet in the water ;)
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| Magnetic termite mounds - thought to have been built according to the Earth's magnetic field |
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| Wangi Falls |
After lunch it was a drive to the Buley Rockholes for some relaxing in the divepools, and then the long drive back to Darwin for a sunset champagne and shrimp dinner.
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| Sunset at East Point |
Like I mentioned - Best daytour yet!
