After our diving adventure, we headed a little ways north of Cairns to Port Douglas, another seaside town. On the drive up we stopped at the Hartley’s Crocodile attraction just off the highway.
I’m not quite sure what to call it — it’s part zoo, part crocodile farm, part sanctuary, but it’s definitely a home for both captive and wild saltwater crocodiles that would otherwise cause problems because their territory was too close to humans.
It’s been operating for over 80 years, helping to educate the public about these dangerous but often misunderstood reptiles. Here you can get up close and personal with crocodilians of all sizes, even tiny juveniles.
One of the most entertaining things to do here is to take a boat ride in the lagoon. There are around 20 or so “salties” in the water here. The boats cruise around all day showing tourists just how high and how quickly these animals can leap out of the water to snag prey.
Each driver offers the crocs a tempting snack of “chicken on a stick” by dipping the chicken carcass in the "empty" water a few times -- you might not even realize that a crocodile was lurking just below the surface, at first. Then after they sense the ripples from the chicken, you only see eyes and a snout float up out of the water. Slowly the whole head emerges, without disturbing the surface of the water at all. They are very patient predators, so they watch the chicken float above them, and wait...and wait...and wait...
And then the passengers in the boat gasp in awe as the crocodile suddenly lunges for the food. I had a front row seat and could hear the thunderclap when the croc’s jaws snapped shut. (Don’t worry—the boat was enclosed in a cage and plexiglass so we were reasonably safe!)
After the lagoon tour, we headed over to see the 11am crocodile feeding show. It was a bit disconcerting to watch two young zookeepers hand-feed these animals. The crocodiles in this enclosure are predominantly female, and I was thoroughly entertained by the fact that the most dominant females are named after pop stars like Madonna, Britney, and Beyonce. Girl power! Everyone survived with limbs intact, but crikey that is not a job I would want to do!
Crocodiles weren’t the only reptiles on display here. We also attended the snake show, where I got as close as I ever want to get to the venomous Death Adder (yes that is really its name; I did not make that up). Notice how casually the keeper is standing while the deadly snake sizes him up from striking distance.
The largest snake here — in fact, the largest individual snake in all of Australia — is Psycho Sally, an enormous reticulated python 18 feet long and weighing 200 pounds or more. They fed her a small goat a few weeks ago so she is just lazing around, digesting.
If you want to see dragons, this is the place. You can find big Komodo Dragons (not native to Australia) all the way down to the tiny Boyd’s Forest Dragon which is only found here in the wet tropics of North Queensland.
We saw a few marsupials too, like this sleepy wombat (they are generally nocturnal).
They had a handful of Queensland koalas, which are slightly smaller and less furry than their southern counterparts since it’s so hot here in this part of Australia.
We were a little creeped out by these fruit bats. Here they have been rebranded as "flying foxes", maybe to make it seem less scary to people since the animals live exclusively on fruit, nectar, and flowers.
But you don’t come here for the mammals — the main attractions here are the crocodiles. The males all all have macho names, like Spartacus and Sultan. Here’s Sultan being fed a snack.
There were three American Alligators; you can tell the difference because the alligator's snout is u-shaped, rounded, and wider than a crocodile's (which is more thinly v-shaped and angular). But as far as I could tell the alligators didn’t even have names. As the park's name implies, this place is all about the crocs.
Visitors can pay a little extra for a special session to feed the big crocs. Here’s a kid feeding Spartacus.
Zac is the largest crocodile at the park. He’s about 70 years old, 15 feet long and weighs 1500 pounds. He is so large that it takes a huge amount of effort and energy for him to get his body up out of the water to lunge for a snack.
We really enjoyed our visit to the park and we left with a much greater appreciation of these powerful instinctual predators. It is a bit unnerving to see just how quickly they can move; and it's important to remember how dangerous it can be to swim or camp near estuaries or beaches where they can be found. (Ahh Australia: always trying to kill you in unique and scary ways...). Our Australia trip will soon come to an end and it's unlikely that we will encounter any more crocs while we're here, but I'm certainly glad that we don't have any back home in Arizona!
Public Service Announcement: Don't do this in croc country - leave it to the professionals!
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