Day 17 - Where beer does flow and men chunder!!!

Day 17 begins with a huge lie in! Till 11, felt amazing, since I'd not had one earlier than half 9 in over 2 weeks!! At 1pm I met a bus to take me on the crocodile jumping boat trip on the Adelaide river! It was about an hours drive over to the river with a couple of nature stops on the way! There was only four of us on the bus, an Australian couple from Perth an a Portuguese man. The first stop off was at the fogg dam which is in the middle of the wetlands, it was built in the 50s in an attempt to grow rice crops... It didn't work and now it's a good place for bird watching and the like, we weren't allowed to walk on the dam because of a crocodile that had claimed the place as his territory! So we just take pictures from the bus, at the end of the dam there is an observation platform which offers 360 degree views of the wetlands, this is a lovely spot! After this we get back on the bus and head to the wetlands visitors centre which is run by the local aboriginal community, this place has all sorts of information on the local wildlife and the like, also very interesting! Now here comes the main event of the day, the croc cruise!! We arrive at the pier on the river where the boat sets off from and there's a little wait before the boat sets off. The first thing we do when on the boat is head up river a bit because the driver has got a bit excited about a croc he's seen! We go towards this croc and they lead him up to the shore with a bit of meat. This guy is huge! 5 metres long! Apparently he's a one in a million croc because he has a skin condition that causes him to have a white head and a black body! They call him Michael Jackson because of this!! We spend a bit of time watching him and then we head down river to as the guy said "see some ballet dancing crocs". We see a couple on the shore and then we see one in the water that they entice with some buffalo meat! The bloody thing leaps out of the water to grab this meat, this is a sight to behold!! Even better, the same croc tried to leap out of the water to grab an eagle that was flying a little bit too close to the water! Gutted I didn't get a photo of this! We go up the river to find a bigger croc to jump, we find one and he obliges! Leaping out of the water to grab the meat, what an incredible sight, one of my favourite sights I've seen to date!!! After this we head back to the pier with hawks following us grabbing food that's thrown out of the boat!! We get off the boat now and head back to Darwin on the bus. I get back to the hostel to find one of the Italian guys I was speaking to the night before waiting with a jug of beer and this is where the heavy night begins!! A few jugs of beer later and it's getting a bit blurry so bear with me... At the hostel bar it's the benefit for the guy who died and a percentage of the takings from the bar are given to the fund as are the takings from a proper Aussie BBQ! After watching some guys get their various 'bits' waxed in aid of this guy and many more jugs later I'm feeling a bit worse for wear and its time for bed! Long day of drinking/traveling to cairns ahead!

Thanks for reading!

Will