Nitmiluk National Park: GRRRRAAAAHHH!

I am now fully two weeks behind on this blog, and the Big Ride is only a week away. So I will try to keep you posted, but maybe through more photo galleries than stories. Pictures being worth a thousand words and all that.

I do want to tell you about Nitmiluk National Park, though. It’s next door to Kakadu, most famous for its stunning, steep-walled Katherine Gorge. In the dry season (which is now) the gorge is mostly empty, a staggering thought given the amount of water still in there. What I was kayaking on is 20 to 30 feet lower than the water level in the wet season. Overnight swells of 18 feet are average. It’s hard to even imagine. Obviously I have to come back and see it for myself some day.

Like the swimming in Kakadu, kayaking in Nitmiluk means moving through water that’s crocodile-infested for half the year. The rangers don’t open it up to paddlers until the water levels fall low enough that the river becomes several distinct bodies of water. As in Kakadu, they preserve certain areas for the crocodiles to hang out and trap and relocate all the crocs they can find in the other ones. Well, kinda.

They gave us conflicting information going in. One was it’s safe to swim here because we have removed all the crocodiles. The other was don’t go on the sandy beaches because that’s where crocs like to lay their eggs, and stepping on a crocodile egg gets you a $5,000 fine, and they lay 15 to 20 eggs in a clutch, so seriously, don’t go on the sandy beaches.

I asked the rangers where’s the best place to go look for crocodiles (which I do understand is the exact opposite of where sane people want to paddle). They told me I’m not going to see any. OK, I say, then who’s laying all these $5,000 crocodile eggs? Who left the footprints, tailprint, and big lizardy belly print on that beach next to the sign that says crocs nest there? But oh no, I’m not going to see any.

By the way, in Katherine Gorge these should all be freshies, not salties. Freshwater crocs are yet another fearsome critter that Australians have no fear of at all. “Aw, they’re not the aggressive ones, mate. Just don’t poke ‘em.”

Well, you know me. I came pretty close to poking one. Not on purpose, of course. That’s just how my travel luck goes: bad on tech, awesome on nature.

Because the rangers wouldn’t tell me where to go looking for crocs, I just poked my little kayak into every nook and cranny I passed. One of them in particular was irresistible. I can only describe it as exactly the place Yoda would go kayaking. A curtain of muddy roots with a cave-like hollow behind it: perfect. What’s in there? Only what I bring with me. What I brought with me was the great hope of a close crocodile encounter.

And then, GGGGRRRRAAAAAHHHH!!!

With the canyon wall so close, the roar echoed in my bones. The rangers were right: I never saw a crocodile. But I sure as hell heard one. I pissed it off by getting too close. Less than a paddle’s length, because I pushed off the back wall with my paddle to get my ass out of there.

It’s incredible how big they can be and still take up so little space. Teenage Mutant Ninja Crocodiles would be twice as stealthy as those other guys. I never did see it, but there’s only one thing in that gorge that roars.

On the Steve’s Peak Experiences list, that one-second encounter ranks up there with skydiving and publishing my first novel. Highlight of my time in Nitmiluk, hands down.