Jailhouse croc!

The main event today and one of the major highlights of the holiday was a trip on the "Adelaide River Queen" home of the original jumping crocodiles...

 

We were booked on the 9am cruise,and were comforted to see the boats anchored up..

....the size of the boats and the glass sides re-assured Tish in particular as the thought of a four year old and a jumping croc was a little bit disconcerting.
As it turned out we were on a slightly smaller boat offering a more intimate experience..

 A quick chat to the boats crew combined with the safety briefing did reassure us that they had never lost anyone [yet...] so off up river we went

 Over the course of the next hour we were treated to amazing views of some truly staggering predators in action
As the first ones came towards us it was slightly disappointing as they were not that large

However first impressions can be SOOOOO wrong.....

If at first you don't succeed try again...

....better luck next time.
Whilst still reeling from the sheer scale of these ones our guide whisked us further up stream to see the alpha male for this stretch.
We just missed him coming out of the reeds...

from the track alone it looked likely to be a sizable beast, and then he appeared swimming towards us...

this impressive male known as Stumpy [see later picture for explanation] was relocated here from Darwin Harbour 20 years ago, he is approx 65 years old, 5.5m long and weighs around a tonne!
He is not as athletic as the smaller ones but....

Just to ram home the serious weaponry he has we were treated to a close up view of his gnashers - when he hatched he had a full compliment of 66 (on a body of just 15cm) and he still has a full set as they can replace them up to 40 times throughout their life apparently.

He was then coaxed out onto the bank so that we could see his full glory...

... and if you look carefully you can see he has no front foot hence his name.
With our heart rates slowly returning to something close to normal we headed back to base with all limbs in tact, although the croc in front of the center tried to alter that....

This cruise has given us huge respect for the true masters of the aquatic environment in the Top End although there is no sentiment in the Funnell family and Tish is still looking at buying a crocodile skin purse for Xmas.

Tomorrow we are upping the anti and going to look at termites and rocks - does it get any more exciting!!!