Venture to Australia

Trip to Cairns – Day 2: Hartley's Crocodile Adventures

It was breakfast on the verandah, a trip to the photo developing place to get our photos from yesterday developed and some time at the local Internet Café for the morning. By late morning we were off to Hartley's Crocodile Adventures for the afternoon. The "tour guide" who took us there wasn't very good, he kept saying the same things over and over again, but it didn't matter because he was more of a bus driver than anything. On the way to the park we passed by the Cairns Zoo which had several flags flying in the sky. Ahh, home...

The park is completely hidden within trees and if you were driving by on the road you would never suspect that there was a crocodile park there.

Once we reached our destination we hopped off the bus and took our first glimpse of a crocodile!

I can't remember his name but apparently he used to live at Hartley's, well I guess technically he still does, but anyway there he was, all decked out for the holiday season.

It was then off to the reptile show, where the snake handler talked extensively about Australian snakes and reptiles, he also brought out a couple snakes to show the audience.

We left the show about 5 minutes early to get to the reptile ferry ride on time. The ferry took us around the swampy area of the park in which many crocodile call home. The ferry drove around to various places and the boat driver pointed out several crocodiles lounging about or slinking into the water as well as some birds.


The driver stopped the boat in an open area and tried luring the crocodiles to the boat with a long stick and a piece of raw meat attached to it.

One crocodile seemed particularly interested in the bait and swam right up to the boat. It leapt out of the water with the grace of a ballerina snapping its jaws with the strength of an elephant. They did this demonstration a few times on either side of the boat in various places in the swamp with different crocodiles, it was quite exciting.

After the ferry dropped us back on land Craig and I went for a walk around the park to see the "Croc Attack Show"; this was by far the most exciting part of the day. The zookeeper talked all about crocodiles and their life in the wild. He also demonstrated the "death roll" and "head shake" that crocodiles use to kill and take down their prey using a rope with a piece of cowhide attached as bait.

The zookeeper actually ended up losing the rope while he was doing this and another zookeeper had to go in to help get it. During the show he fed the crocodile little fish and I mean LITTLE fish!



After the show we went for a walk around the rest of the park to see the other animals they had there. Including the most deadly of creatures, the green garden hose snake.


One of the creatures that we saw while walking around the place was in fact not officially part of the park. Australian green ants, described in the Wikipedia as such:

Australian green ants are eaten by the aboriginals. Their abdomens taste like lemon sherbet, are high in vitamin C and have antibiotic properties. Squashed green ants mashed in water makes up an excellent lemon-lime flavored drink.

I also hear they're excellent as a tea if you have a cold. :S


It was then off to the cassowary feeding where people had a chance to feed the cassowaries. For those of you who don't know, the cassowary is the third largest bird in the world behind the ostrich and the emu. The zookeeper brought out two buckets of various fruits and vegetables in which people were encouraged to feed the cassowaries through the bars or over the fence.

We were then back on the bus back to the Cairns CBD (central business district).

One of the nice things about the particular hotel that we chose to stay in was that it included a free dinner at a local restaurant or 20% off the menu. Considering the free dinner choices consisted of things like, a small bowl of soup or a small salad we chose to go with the 20% off discount for a better meal. We had our meal out on the patio.

The only problem with eating on the patio was the noise… (396kb)

For those of you who are listening to the clip, these are lorikeets, green colourful birds that like to gather in groups around 6 or 7 o'clock at night and continue on like this until around 9ish. If you can get past that the atmosphere is quite pleasant heh…

Anyway, for anyone who finds themselves traveling to Cairns, I would highly recommend checking Hartley's Crocodile Adventures.

posted by Compmouse @ 12/29/2005 08:10:00 PM