Leaving Darwin and our camp at Hidden Valley behind we headed west towards Kakadu following the Allelaide River. We decided to do the Jumping Croc cruise at a place just near Fogg Dam. Very confusing as there are three different jumping croc cruises within about 10km of each other.
The one we decided upon turned out to be very good - only 14 of us on a single deck open boat. Our skipper Morgan took us up river first to find a large male about 5m called Godfrey - he put on a show for us jumping for the food even though he's estimatdd to be 100 years old - not a bad effort. Morgan told us that he'd been attacked by another big male two days ago and though our cruise was at high tide (when most crocs stay out of the water) and the water temp was lower than normal he still came out to see us. Sean sat at the very front of the boat for the whole cruise and had a great time.
Then we travelled downstream for a bit and had two different females come alongside and show their stuff.
Then a little bit further downstream we met Scotty - a 5.5m male who was basking on the bank as we approached but entered the water as the boat got close causing Sean to vacate his positiion at the front rather quickly. Scotty is a sprightly 80years old and rather aggresive - he almost ended up in the boat with us.
Then Morgan put out some meat on the back railing for a pair of Whistling Kites and they swooped in to take the morsel off teh railing right in front of us.
After our cruise we headed further west to a place called Window on the Wetlands which included lots of information about the surrounding landscape and some great educational displays along with some great views of the real thing.
We ended up staying at a free camp just down the road called Beatrice Hill - turned out to be quite a popular place - ended up with a lovely spot overlooking the surrounding wetlands and a beautiful sunset over them once we got used to the vast numbers of mosquitoes.
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