The Last Day

Our last full day in Australia, and we thought to ourselves: We need to see more crocodiles! Beaches! Sunsets! And maybe actually have a hot breakfast for once, as up until now we'd been subsisting on Nutella and jelly sandwiches.

So we headed up the coast toward Hartley's Crocodile Adventures. On the way we stopped at one of the many beaches that you can't swim in due to jellyfish. They did warn us, however!


Next up was Hartley's Crocodile Adventure. The setup was similar to, but larger than the Rainforestation zoo. And of course, they were all about the crocodiles, which they not only display but raise for food and skin here. I had wondered why crocodile meat was so inexpensive. Feeding a crocodile a chicken a week makes raising them expensive, but the skin is so valuable that the meat is more or less just a byproduct.

After a great breakfast, we headed out for our boat tour. They have a small river/island set up where the crocs that aren't part of the farm can relax in the sun. Our boat driver also got to feed a couple of them. As this picture shows, when they want to leave the water, they can!


In addition to the crocodiles, they have a respectable zoo there. In fact, we got to see one more new animal. Australia does not have much in the way of large mammalian carnivores, with the dingo pretty much topping the list. Even rarer are the marsupial carnivores. The largest one is the quoll, a relative of the Tasmanian Devil, and the zoo had two that they had acquired in the last month. They were still pretty shy, and hissed continuously at the keeper when he placed baby chicks around their enclosure for them to "hunt", but because they were feeding we got to see both the male and female.

At the end of the day they had another demonstration with the crocodile. They are truly stupid creatures. The croc handler had a chunk of fake food on the end of a rope, and swung it out for the croc to grab. At that point the croc was safe to be around. All the croc needed to do to get the handler was open its jaws, but once it got the fake bait in their mouth it refused to let go no matter what. But they're also fast and dangerous, so most of the demonstration was about croc safety when going camping in the Outback. Following our day at the zoo, we headed up the coast. At the Rex Lookout there were some hang gliders about to take off, but most people were just tourists taking pictures of the wonderful view like we were.

Further up the coast is the tourist mecca of Port Douglas. We found a nice restaurant right on the water's edge, and seemed a great way to end the day. We did get a surprise on our way out of town at dusk: bats were just coming out to feed, and there must of been thousands of them darkening the sky.