Don't use the life jacket, swim fast!

Kakadu has 3 alligator rivers, North, South, and East, but it has no alligators. Instead, it has about 10,000 crocodiles. The misnaming comes from a naturalist in the 1820’s, who obviously understood his flowers better than his reptiles. Today, we went for a 2h cruise on part of the Southern Alligator River called the Yellow River.
The safety instructions before the trip are unusual, in that the driver says , "Don't use the life jackets, just swim as fast as you can to the nearest point." The same goes for the life ring. "I can only use to bring in what is left of you." He is a bit of a Crocodile Dundee who likes to tell jokes, especially politically incorrect ones. "The white bellied Eagle used to be called the white breasted Eagle, but we are not allowed to call it that anymore. We can't mention breasts. " When the kids say they are going to feed me to the crocs, he tells them, "I don't mind, I'm in the market for a new wife." Well, I survived, and he looked less Crocodile Dundee and more nice old outback hippy.
You see the most crocs in the dry season, but then, if you are unlucky, it's so dry the boat can sail. So although we aren’t at the best time for crocs, we still see plenty of them, and the boat has plenty of water to move freely. This is the very start of the wet season, when rivers start to fill up, but in a few weeks time1/3 of Kakadu will be under water, and the height of the river will have increased by 2m or more.
There are plenty of lovely birds too from the large Jaribu to the tiny Jesus bird (he walks on water).
It's NOT Oscar’s birthday, but because we will drive much of his actual birthday, we are celebrating it today, the 17th. It's fitting since he likes crocodiles so much. We don’t have any big presents for him, but scattered throughout the day he will get things like Pokémon cards, sweets, and teddy bear he absolutely wanted to have in Japan, but which was of course sold out 😉.Lue lisää