Adrian still didn’t see enough of the crocs so we took another tour. The Estuarine crocodile (saltwater croc) is a survivor of the dinosaur age. They can grow up to 7 meters and in 1971 they became a protected species in the Northern Territory.

The cruise was in a different part of the river. We arrived early so went for a walk along the riverbank. There was a family of white cockatoos coming in to nest. One flew down right in front of us to chomp on a small bush. It seemed to have no fear of us.

We also saw a great egret, they seemed to be everywhere.

Three buses arrived full of people for the cruise. They seemed to just keep coming and coming. They divided everyone up into two boats. As we were loading I kept my eye on the front seats. This time I wanted to make sure we were as close to the front of the boat as possible. It did surprise me most of the people moved to the back of the boat. Maybe they were being polite but keep in mind we are looking for crocs and because of such, politeness is over rated. Adrian and I got the fronts seats. Yes I did smile when I sat down and I did feel very smug. We were in the best seats.

We hadn’t got far down the river when we saw the first croc and like our first cruise people rushed to the front of the boat for that “first crock” photos (I didn’t have to as I was already there, ha ha.) The tour guide takes the boat right up to the bank. We were almost sitting on top of him. He seemed to be disinterested in us, with considering how close we were to him I was very pleased about.

There were only a few water lilies, not like last time when they were everywhere. This left us to see the crocs in the water. We were looking for them and still they were hard to see them.

What surprised me was how many whistling ducks there were on the waters edge. I would have thought the duck would become lunch if they weren’t careful.

There were a lot of birds along the river. We had chosen an evening cruise as it is advertised as having more wild life. Birds were everywhere and some were different from our first cruise. It may have helped with being late in the afternoon and the birds were coming to the river to feed or roost. I wasn’t going to complain whatever reason.

And we saw some Brolgas. The tour guide was very happy to point them out to us. He went on to say if were lucky they would dance for us. This was something he had not seen happening and he had been taking tours out for 3 years. He very slowly turned the boat to them and we seem to drift to closer. The Brolgas started to dance for us. We watched in silence aware. When they had finished the tour guide told us how shocked he was to see it.

Then the tour guide said we had to hurry to get into position to watch the sun set. We saw some more crocs on the way and I took some last photos.

We met up with the other boat and we sat and waited. A calmness come over the water as the sun slowly said goodbye.

I did think it would be a now you see it now you don’t type of sunset but suddenly the sky caught fire. Awh.