Jumping Crocs, Fish Feeding and Fogg Dam
Trip Start
Jul 10, 2008
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6
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Trip End
Jul 10, 2011
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Adelaide River,
Northern Territory,
Australia
Friday, July 25, 2008
On the Thursday we arrived we had a pleasant trip down Cullen Bay, a harbour area that had been built up with expensive homes and tall apartment blocks. It was all very picturesque. Cullen Bay marine is blocked from the sea by a lock.
Black KIte
The tides height in Darwin is huge and can fluctuate up to 7metres. Looking at the size of the lock coming into this small bay give a good perspective of how big 7 metre tides actually are. There are lots of nice restaurants dotted around the marina. We stopped in one, The Buzz Café, where we sat overlooking the water. I had some nice fried Barramundi and ended up feeding most of my chips to the eager fish swimming by, mainly milkfish and mullet. It's pretty amazing how many fish you can see from above the water. Later that week around in Nightcliff we saw a stingray while peering over the top of the jetty. We did find the food a little pricey - fish and chips and a couple of cold ones set us back about $70. We were right on the waterfront though - I guess location comes with a little premium. We also got to try our first Barra (Barramundi), this is the most popular local fish and can be caught is salt or fresh water. They have to be a full 55cm before you can even take one home and apparently the estuary ones have the best taste. Cullen Bay is also the home of the boat to the Tiwi Islands (that I mentioned earlier in my blog) and to the far side of the bay and the town of Mandorah. There are about 50 aboriginal people waiting on the dock for the boat back to Nguiu on Bathhurst Island, one of Tiwi Island. This was the first time I'd seen so many Aboriginal people together at one time. We also heard the trip to Mandorah was interesting, but there was not too much to do when you got there, just a pub to pass away a few hours in.Friday, I did a trip to Casuarina Mall while Erica went to work.
1-Black KIte
I had big plans for that day to get us set up with mobile phones, get our visas and open a bank account, unfortunately some of the best laid plans go to waste. The visa got stamped in our passports without problems. We decided to open a bank account with NAB (National Australia Bank), as this was the biggest bank in Australia and we figured it would give us the most options for ATMs. We thought that opening a bank account in Australia was going to be a 5 minute thing, at least that's how I remembered it happening in the USA where they wanted you out of there was quickly as possible so they could get on with more pressing items than a new customer! Here we got a full hour explanation of our new account, it seemed a bit laborious at the times but we came away knowing the ins and out of what we could do with our new account. One interesting thing was we did not get a cheque book, most transactions from person to person can be done online in Australia. What a great system. Transaction, from say the supermarket will also show immediately on your online account, with my USA account I would always have to wait a day. The problems came that day with the mobile phones - I walked into the first store, Tandy, as soon as I started asking the guys questions he seemed to suggest I went and shopped around and that I'd get a better deal elsewhere. This has happened to me a few times in Australia, and I really think it's just the sales people been friendly rather than just not wanting to ask questions, but I know one thing for sure, it would not have happened in Boston.
2-Black KIte
There they would not have let you leave the shop until you had your new phone in hand! Well I for one liked the low-pressure technique. But when I asked the guy to explain one of the plans I soon became lost, his reply went something like this ' It's Caps you know, you just get it get your Caps and that's it', I asked a few more questions but got similar responses in terms I did not understand- I left that store thinking what the hell are these Caps things and what was I going to do? I had to go and sit down for a coffee before I could even consider going into another phone store. In the end my plan was to go around different phone stores asking questions that built upon the previous questions picking up a little more knowledge each time. Once I got confused again and then I would leave the store. The Internet options seemed even more complicated than the phone options. I was getting scared for the day I had to organise this. In the end I felt I'd picked up enough terminology and brochures to come back another day and attack the phone buying issue head on. Mobile plans are pricey in Australia when compared to the USA, but this one shopping centre had 8 mobile phone shops. Australia has a 30th of the population of the USA in the same land-mass that obviously makes things more expensive, but 8 mobile phone stores in one mall says to me there is someone else making a boat load of money on mobiles!Now I have another money story - this time it's from when we were in Tassie earlier in the year, a guy on the trail had the same exact pair of Asolo, Italian (but made in Asia) hiking boots as me.
Fannie Bay Sunset
Mine cost $170 in the USA. His had cost him $450 in Australia! He hadn't liked them so he ended up never using them. The boots were made closer to Australia than the USA yet they were over twice the price! The mall also had a bunch of other stores, there was a Mitchell's camping store, now the good news was this place did sell it's own brand of hiking boots for about $100 - they looked pretty decent for the price, so maybe not all our new things will get shipped from overseas JThe big coffee chain store over in Australia was Gloria Jeans. There were definitely no Starbucks in Darwin, there were Starbucks in the more populated areas of the country, but on the 29th July Starbucks closed 61 of its 84 stores in Australia, leaving it with just 25 in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. I guess I wasn't going to be getting a Starbuckies any time soon! Funny think is Gloria Jeans was started in the USA also.
Since arriving in Australia, in the airports, in Darwin and now in Casuarina Shopping Center I noticed a Subway sandwich shop. Besides McDonalds this was the only big USA food chain I'd seen a lot of in Australia. Actually I take that back, I have seen another chain, Hungry Jacks. What did you say, you haven't heard of it? Well that is what the Aussies call Burger King! They still have the Whopper with Cheese etc. but they also have additions such as the Aussie Burger - From the wiki - 'This burger is based on the traditional Australian fish and chips shop favourite, including fried egg, bacon, onion, and beetroot, with the traditional meat, lettuce, and tomato.' Sounds pretty God damn good to me!
The mall had a lot of bookstores, as you can imagine for a town of 100,000 it's not a huge mall and I counted four.
1-Fannie Bay Sunset
It's good the Aussies like their books and we took the opportunity to purchase a bird book. The mall also has not one, but two Smokemart stores - this is a store dedicated to smoking related merchandise! Want to get your Marlboro ashtray; this is the place to come!Michael Douglas (yes that's his real name), Erica's work colleague was gracious enough to take us out, along with his kids on the Saturday and Sunday. Dougo picked us up from our hotel around 11am and gave us a guided tour. We went down to the Stokes Hill Wharf, here you could see back onto Darwin and the new convention centre. There were cranes littering the Darwin skyline, this place looked like it was exploding. Dougo told us how the government had spent $1.1 billion on the waterfront development including the new convention centre and how every now and again they would come up with big funding projects to kick-start the NT economy. I believe Erica is already getting some income tax break given to encourage people to come to the Northern Territory. I think she gets an extra percentage of her income as a tax-free income.
Oh and before I forget if you ever make it this way the locals like to shorten Northern Territory to "The Territory"!
The wharf is a nice stroll with a take out seating area at the end and about 10 food stalls to chose from. At the near end of the wharf is Jetty Restaurant another nice restaurant built on some decking overhanging the water, for $30 you could get an all you can eat feast, that included and oyster bar, crab, fish and steak and numerous other entries.
Jumping croc
We did find out though from visiting this restaurant on a public holiday that all restaurants have a $10 surcharge applied to the bill!We drove up and along the esplanade. This raised up piece of parkland overlook the ocean and had some nice gardens that you can walk through. The place is teaming with bird life, some of the common ones you can guarantee to see in the surrounding area if you hang around for a while are
Straw Necked Ibis
Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos
Galah, Rainbow Lorikeets
Pied-Imperial Pigeon
a variety of pretty doves
Forest Kingfishers
Rainbow bee-eaters
Fork Tailed Swifts
Masked Lapwing
Black Kites
Magpie Lark (or Peewee)
Figbird and a whole bunch of other birds that we haven't learnt to identify yet J
There were a bunch of rusty old looking boats off shore, apparently they hold livestock, in particular the Brahman cattle, who survive quite well in the arid Australian climate, but who's meat is a little tough for the Australians taste buds. This all gets shipped, live overseas, for a less discerning palate.
Next it was off to the fish feeding, at a place called Doctor's Gully. Here for $8 they will give you a few pieces of stale bread and you can feed the fish!
http://www.aquascene.com.au/
It's actually pretty fun and some of the milkfish that come in to feed must be a good 80cm long! The milkfish will come and eat the bread right out of your hand, it's quite a strange feeling and I found it a but disconcerting at first having these big fish coming up and nibbling on your fingers, but I didn't want to look like a chicken so I persevered through.
1-Jumping croc
They also had diamond scaled mullet, barramundi, long tom and catfish is a small pool close by, and these cool fish called Archer fish that swirted water up into the mangrove trees, they would do this to knock animals of the branches and grab them when they hit the water!We stopped off at Parap market and bought some lunch to take with us to East Point. There are lots of great markets in Darwin with great food, atmosphere, music and more. More info. here and more to come later on them.
http://www.darcity.nt.gov.au/residents/community_services/markets.htm
We took out food passed all the posh waterfront houses and found a nice spot at East Pont Reserve where we settled down for an hour or so. We did see a couple of kayakers out in the water and were kicking ourselves a bit for having sold ours before we came, although the prospect of rolling and hitting a box jelly fish made us realise our decision may not have been all bad!
The next day Dougo came and picked us up again, this time we were going to see the jumping crocs! As we headed out along the Stuart Highway, this road extends from Darwin all the way to Adelaide for 2,834kms. We were only on if got a while before banging a left on the Arnhem Highway towards the Adelaide River crossing where our tour started.
http://www.jumpingcrocodilecruises.com.au/
Dougo gave us a run down on some of the none native species we were seeing that seemed like they were causing havoc to area. Gamba grass seemed like one that was causing issues.
2-Jumping croc
It grows quickly and is claimed it can support 40 times more cattle than native grass that is why the farmers love it so much. The problem is once it escapes the farmlands it can grow up to 4 metres tall and is like a tinderbox waiting to go off. Native grass doesn't grow anything like that tall and gamba grass can burn up to 10 times hotter. The worry from ecologist is gamba grass will take over and the "Top End" savannah will lose its diversity.Now there was one town we passed by on out trip to the Adelaide River, called Humpty Doo, you read that correctly! Apparently famous for it's boxing crocodile. I'm sure there will be more to come on this!
The croc tour was definitely fun. I wanted to go on the back of the boat, but apparently this was not protected by glass and the boat owner though dangling long zoom lenses overboard may not be a good idea. Once they started feeding them I could see their point! The boat driver knew each croc and each area of the river, they know the crocs that will 'perform' and once we get there they dangle chunks of meat overboard, as you can see from the pictures the crocs will propel themselves out of the water enough that their back legs are out of the water - all very impressive. Of course some would argue that this sort of tour encourages the crocs to associate food with humans and I've heard people say if you catch a fish in parts of the Adelaide River you'll be lucky to get it back in you boat before a croc takes it off your fishing line. I know if I catch a big Barra on the Adelaide or any other river for that matter, I won't be reaching overboard to pull it into the boat!
On the way back we stopped at Fogg Dam.
3-Jumping croc
This was a great little conservation area that I'm sure we'll be back to a lot. The dam was built in the 1950 to support a budding rice industry, that got thwarted when the water buffalo, birds and rats ate all the rice. We saw a hole bunch of birds here, some of the ones less common in Darwin include Little Egret Intermediate Egret and Great Egret
Pied Heron
Jabiru or black-necked stork the only member of the stork family native to Australia. Comb-crested Jacana
Darter
Yellow Billed Spoonbill
Some cormorants, shrikes and flyeaters.
Dougo had us eating these green tree ants that had a very nice citrus taste to them. I felt like the Bush Tucker Man. To get the part that tastes like citrus you have to yank of the abdomen leaving the thorax and the head.
Erica saw her first wallaby; she was obviously very excited, where the Aussies in the car had seen them all before. The reserve also had lots of water lilies, but what made me stop and think a bit was when I was stood at the waters edge staring down at the lilies and then all of a sudden out of the camouflage and about 3 metres away a was a 1 metre croc staring straight at me!
That evening we went to a place called the ski club - it seemed like a bit of an institution with the locals and you could see why, its location was fantastic with views out over Fannie Bay. This was a great place to sit out on the lawn and enjoy a sundowner or two. There are a lot of these clubs in Darwin where you need a membership to be admitted. The Darwin Ski Club allowed people to come in 3 times free before having to join. I did hear a rumour that this place had lost its licence in the passed for serving none members, but can't find any proof of that at this time!
The first 4 days had given us a great introduction to Darwin and what the town and area was all about. We couldn't wait to find out some more!
