Fwd: Jumping croc tour and berry springs park

When we left Dundee Beach we travelled 3hrs south west 

To Tumbling waters. We arrived here fairly early reversed Ruby in (another good reverse in) plugged her in to power and water and set off for Palmerston , a suburb of Darwin to get my new mobile phone, a new lens cap for my camera, and get gadget a haircut, and pick up some essentials from Woolworths.

This took a lot longer than we anticipated , particularly the lineup at the barber shop. But after all this shopping I finally felt like all my pieces had been put back together from my losing spree.

We had a quiet evening and headed off early in the morning for the 

Adelaide River jumping croc tour.

We were very lucky to have Dylan, the grandson of Harry Bowen, one of the original founders of the tour.

Dylan was very knowledgeable about crocs.

  He managed to get  several crocs to “Jump” for us  and found a lot of various sizes snoozing on the banks.

The Croc’s definitely  know the drill and knew to swim to the boat as we pulled up for their feed of chicken.

We did get to see ‘Brutus” their most well known resident , Brutus is estimated to be nearly 100 years old , Dylan pointed out how , Brutus no longer had as many teeth and said that normally this would lead to his death by starvation due to not being able to hunt very well anymore and it puts him at high risk of death if a younger stronger male decides to fight for his territory.

The Crocodile above is a female, she was hanging out in Brutus’s territory. Dylan informed us that Crocs really don’t like any other croc in their territory and will only tolerate it for mating purposes. He went onto explain that even during mating they continue to be aggressive with one or the other sometimes losing a limb.   

The croc above is “Dom” or dominator , he is the second largest croc in this area. All of these Crocs are still very much living in the wild , and are doing battle against each other and at times with sharks.

Dylan regaled  us with stories of his childhood , growing up with pet saltwater and freshwater crocs , how he would swim with them in his pool and how he has been hospitalised twice due to bites.  Citing that whilst the bite itself wasn’t too bad , he had always ended up with a huge infection after and this is part of the croc’s apex predators tools ,where they can cause injury and death without exerting a lot of energy. 

It was wonderful to hear the passion in Dylans voice for these creatures and whist they are still wild, he obviously cares a great deal for them, has names for most of them, hopefully this will secure the future of his families business.

After the croc tour , we stopped at Humptydoo hotel for lunch 

  

(Not my image, courtesy of internet) and then headed off to the 

Berry Springs Nature Park

The nature park is located about 60kms south of Darwin and is a great spot to relax

the park has several picnic and BBQ areas.

The crystal clear waters are fed by a warm spring and is home to many small native fish.

There are several different pools , to swim in and all have access either by ladder or stairs. The top pool (below) has a waterfall that you can sit under and enjoy. All the pools are connected and it is possible to float from one end to the other.  

During WW2 , Berry Springs was part of a rest and recreation camp set up by armed forces for the 100 000 plus personnel that were stationed in the area. The armed forces built a weir across the springs to create a deeper water hole the area continues to be maintained and managed and It is a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.

Until the next blog 

Travel safe 

The Touring Knights  

 

"Life is like a cup of tea, it s all in how you make it" ☕️