Monday 6 August – And another day full of adventure for some of us.  At a bit after 8 this morning I rang the Jumping Crocodile Cruise mob and booked us in for the 11am cruise, leaving from a part of the Adelaide River about 64 km from here. I had confirmed that the boat we were booked on was the one on two levels, with solid glass windows between us and the jumping crocodiles, which gave me a small amount of assurance that we would be safe.  Especially after seeing Sweetheart in the museum yesterday and learning that before she was caught, she had bitten the propellers off two boats in the river.  Anyway, that gave us plenty of time to have breakfast, shower and get ourselves there without any hassle.

We drove out through Palmerston, then onto the Arnhem Highway till we were quite some way past Humpty Doo, when we saw a sign pointing to the jumping crocodile cruises, so we beatled off down that road for quite a few kilometres and eventually came to a very low key kind of a shelter where a few other people were gathered – the book-in spot.  At the counter I said to Bridgitte that we had a booking in the names of Dawn and Grant, and she looked at her list and said there were no bookings in that name.  Were we at the right cruise, as apparently there are several operating in the area, but they had space, and we were more than welcome to join their next one at 11 o’clock.   And on their brochure I noticed that they have a very small boat with no glass. It’s a bit of a flat bottomed boat, with seats each side (Grant has just described it to me as a 30 man punt), with aluminium sides about 75cm high and another 25cm attached to the top of that of like heavy chicken wire.  I was a little unsure, until she said that the other one we were perhaps meant to be at was quite a way back along the track, then a further 4 km past the turn off, and it was now after 10.15am.

Then she told us that this boat held a maximum of 30 people, whereas the other companies had much bigger boats, seating up to 100, so we would obviously get a much better view from this one.  Well, to cut a bit of decision making time short – I said okay, we’d go on this one.

It turned out to be an excellent decision.  Harry (who along with his brother Morgan owns and runs the business, and has done for 30 years), came out at about a quarter to eleven and said we might as well get going now, as there were several vehicles coming along the road, so we’d beat the rush.  But the time we got going there were 30 of us including 2 kids, so off we went.  By now it was high tide, so Harry really didn’t expect us to see any crocs on the banks of the river, as the banks were mostly under water.  But we headed downstream for a very short while before we found one medium sized croc lying on the bank.  Harry lured her into the river with a bit of slapping of a stick with some meat on the end of a line on the water, and got her right on our side of the boat to view. He was very conscious of alternating feeding sides of the boat so that we all got a great view.

This was the start of a very exciting hour where we saw (and Harry fed) a number of crocs, with two big ones in particular being pretty scary.  One was Brutus – about a five metre, 60-70 year old specimen, and the other Dominator also around the five and a half metres in length.  The come right up to the boat, and Brutus particularly seemed to like situating himself right in front of me, so I got a couple of frights when he jumped and snapped those massive jaws right in front of my eyes.

The whole thing was amazing, though as I said, a bit scary at times, and in my fright I occasionally turned the video off instead of on!!  However we have some good photos, and hopefully some good video as well.  There was once when he came up and banged his head against the wire, so would have only been about 75 cm away from us.

One of Grant’s photos of Brutus. 

We had about an hour and a quarter on the river, and a most memorable time.

After leaving there we made our way back to the city, stopping off at first, Sattler Strip where Dad was stationed during 1944 in WW2 for a photo opportunity, then at a Woolworths in one of the suburbs to get some supplies, and were back at camp by mid afternoon. 

We’ve sat and had several cuppas, I did a bit of hand washing, and Grant has been to the office and got permission for a late check out (midday) if we need it tomorrow, because we don’t know how long his blood test will take.  Grant told the fellow that if it is later than midday, we’ll stay another night.

So that has been today.  Thanks Amanda, for telling us last night not to miss this cruise, though you were talking about the enclosed boat – we didn’t know there was more than one group offering these cruises, but it was all for the best in the finish.