The dawn of the dinosaurs.....

It seemed fitting that on the day I aged one year we went to a local park where one could look back in history and see creatures that have been with us since the dawn of the dinosaurs. Dom would argue that the day dawned with this dinosaur aging too.
We celebrated my birthday by going to the Crocodylus Park.

This local park is a charitable park that is primarily for breeding the crocs for some fantastic handbags (of which I drooled over in the gift shop, Santa this is on the list!), and harvest eggs from landowners who would otherwise kill them thus saving the wild crocs from persecution. It also conducts research and education along with rescuing the wild crocs that stray into the harbour or local bilabongs, which happens quite frequently.

This is traditionally how they hunted them, in these wooden row boats seven or eight men to a boat, still leaving room for a croc to return with them. Personally I prefer the modern method of a steel boat with a cage over the top of it.

Meet "Bruce" he is fifteen feet and weighs a tonne. They have had him in the park for sixteen years. They are not sure how old he is. Now going back to that boat....

There were other indigenous animals at the park too....

This big boy was relaxing during the heat of the day. This Red Kangaroo stands as tall as Dom and was rather impressive even lying down.

Cassowary (pedantic Dom says it is a Southern Cassowary) was also enjoying the shade during the heat of the day. Another prehistoric beast when up close and personally I think very pterodactyl like.

More manageable sizes. These Antilopine Wallaroos were having a boxing match just before we arrived and were very skinny.

Then there were some surprises, not Australian clearly, but according to the blurb there is a self sustaining population in the outback. There were also tigers, lions and various monkeys but I didn't want to photograph them as they detracted form the crocodile aspect of the park.

Following the crocodile footprints we joined a tour to learn more about these beasts.

The game keeper did a wee talk and feed some of the larger crocs. Not the very biggies, these are about ten years old and mostly females. There were two males in with the ladies, but these girls are there for breeding purposes not for wallets. Very deceptive because you can barely see them in this water, they can be completely hidden in about 30cm of water apparently and then leap out and jump well over 6foot. The keeper said if you are within 5m of the water's edge you are fair game and they will actively hunt and stalk you unlike sharks that might be a case of mistaken identity.

Then we walked around the park with the keeper and surprisingly when it came to feed the likes of "Bruce" the public were encouraged to feed them off little wooden fishing rods and get them to jump up out the water. Seeking volunteers my boys were the first to volunteer to feed (not be mistaken for being fed too) the crocs and Hamish leapt at the chance.

Hamish and I are hanging on to the rod and this is who we fed. He was big enough. They all then had a go with me helping with the rod. Pictures were difficult to get because the large crowd understandably wanted to see the crocs.

More touring round with the guide learning about the smaller crocs and the freshwater crocs and American alligators. We came to "Attack Lagoon" which contained 700 crocs in it. They sort them periodically so as to reduce bigger ones eating little ones.

Like this.. if you are too small you could become lunch.

The highlight of the tour and the park was the opportunity to hold a two year old Saltie. The kids loved it.

We went home after a hot day in the sun, although it is considerably cooler and we are noticing the winter! All very hungry so naturally we had

crocodile burgers, kebabs, sausages and cake! Please note the cheeky question mark on top of my cake! Very naughty. But a good day.