Never Thought About Crocodiles Before…

Cooktown From Grassey Hill

Main Attraction

 While we got out of the storm, we promptly got into the heat … and the humidity!  I thought we were going away from the Equator, according to the maps.  But I can’t imagine the Equator being any hotter or more claustrophobic.

Packed in the HOT tender
to go ashore.

Cook's anchor and cannon
jettisoned to get off the reef and get on shore!

Yep.  I meant claustrophobic.  When it is this hot and you are anywhere around an ocean, it is bound to be terribly humid and that makes it “claustrophobic.”  And it is kinda funny watching and listening to the guests, all clustered on the SUN DECK, in their swimsuits, lying on lounges around an empty pool, complaining about the heat and sun.  And these are not “body beautifuls” either.  Imagine, if you can, 60-90 year old, wobbly wrinkled skin and all, in two-piece suits!  Not me for sure.  I am anywhere there is air-conditioning, riding out the heat in comfort!!  Isn’t that why God invented air-conditioning (thank you, Mr Carrier!)

Anyway back to Crocs.  We were hungry for land under our feet.  And the only land available after all those sea days was “Cooktown”. We are going north, slightly around Australia toward a place called Darwin.  Don’t know why they call it that, but maybe it has to do with the Crocs also?!  Cooktown has less than 2500 people, so when a cruise ship lands there, it is a BIG DEAL and they bring out the school busses to ferry us around.  Then comes the stories about Crocs.

You see, we never really thought about Crocs before.  Alligators, crocodiles, we in Missouri don’t have many encounters with those kinds of beasts, but why would we?  We are not, after all, Florida!  But apparently there are multitudes of different kinds of crocs all over Australia.  And this part of the world.  In Australia, they are a protected species, so they have been reproducing at a huge rate—and they are, to put it bluntly, HUNGRY.  For anything.  Tricycles, dogs, cats, people, babies, and on and on.  And they are not afraid of humans, so they traipse out of the water and walk or lumber more correctly, into houses and chomp on the nearest helpless thing like babies.  And don’t think you only need to stay away from lakes, oceans, etc.  Apparently, they inhabit ditches with water, wells with water, any place they can get a little drink and find munchables. 

Looking Back at the ship, longingly, from Grassey Hill 

Our entire tour of tiny Cooktown was a litany of how big lots of the crocs are, how many people they have eaten (or dogs or cats or whatever), and how, God forbid, some stupid tourist might want to swim in the ocean or water ski (this is beach-front island sort of place, after all) and how they will be devoured, arms, legs, heads and all.  Got the message. 

About all the snakes in the area

And if that isn’t enough, our guide proceeded to tell us about the pythons, up to 20 feet long, who are so quick when they are hungry that they wrap themselves around you in a blink and you are a gonner!  Our guide was a former school teacher from Papua, New Guinea who retired in Cooktown (one grocery, small library, lots of saloons, a gas station).  Why, one would ask?  Why retire where the heat is awful, there is a 6-month rainy season that cuts you off from civilization for months at a time, when one could move south and have air conditioning?  Puzzling, huh?

One of The main buildings in Cooktown

Capt. Cook Memorial

     
 

In any case, we are sailing straightaway toward Indonesia where the crocs, they tell us, are 15 feet long and waiting on the beaches to pounce on unsuspecting beach combers or cruisers.  Yum.  Such fun to contemplate.  Me?  I like a/c.  I worship Mr. Carrier for his invention.  Swimming?  I guess I’ll save it for my very own pool in my very own backyard in Missouri.  Why, again, did I plan this cruise????