Day 285: Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures — G’Day Shannon!
We had another leisurely morning and then did school on the porch.
We made PBJs for the road then headed south to Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures. Our travel agent organized this excursion — all we knew was that there are crocs and koalas and we were supposed to show up for a 1pm tour.
Hartley’s has really good online reviews but Margaret and I were admittedly a little skeptical. After seeing so many animals in the wild this year, we’re sorta turned off by zoos and any sort of animals in captivity for the sake of tourists. We asked Alan (of the Botanical Ark) what he thinks of the place. He said he doesn’t love when animals are living in captivity — but he admits it might be the best way to educate the public, especially kids.
Anyway, we arrived after eating our sandwiches in the car and were immediately taken to the restaurant and served a full “tasting platter” of croc meat. Apparently lunch is included! Croc spring roles, croc sausage, croc kebabs — served with two sauces for dippin’. It was actually pretty good — the meat does in fact taste like chicken. And we were chowing down as we watched live crocs swimming around in the lagoon merely feet from our table. Nothing to see here buddy! Just chicken fingers, promise! We learned later that croc meat isn’t really eaten by locals. It’s a “delicacy” / marketing ploy for tourists.
We were told our guide would come find us in the restaurant. I expected Mick Dundee. We got Shannon.
I almost choked on my croc tender. Good gracious.
James, who has become totally at ease around grownup guides, restaurant staff, hotel employees, etc. got one look at Shannon and tried to hide under Margaret’s chair. He didn’t know what to do with himself for the first 10 minutes and then finally started showing off and chatting her up.
Shannon took us on our 1-hour “Mammal Madness” Tour.
Highlights included
A wallaby named Andrew.
A wombat named Nulla.
And Kelly the Koala.
We asked Shannon if holding Kelly was appropriate and she said that she’s limited to 30 minutes a day for 3 days a week. Who knows if that’s ok but clearly the folks at Hartley’s are at least thinking about the ramifications.
Shannon passed us off to Mario for our croc feeding. He’s a 17-year veteran of Hartley’s and more of the croc-whisperer Mick Dundee character we expected.
Again, we didn’t know what we signed up for this afternoon. But moments after meeting Mario I was holding a 10-foot metal pole, dangling a still-feathered chicken leg over the nose of ferocious 15-foot crocodile. We fed Frank, Sultan and Gregory while Mario regailed us with croc stories. Crocodile Adventures!
After the crock feeding we were handed off to Jesse for a boat tour around the lagoon. Jesse was right out of central casting — a young, cocksure croc expert who, in addition to the captain skills and one-liners, knew exactly where to throw the chicken legs so the crocs would shockingly appear out of the water and snap them up. Not his first croc rodeo.
Hartley’s was a success. We went in a little skeptical but it was actually really entertaining. The kids had a blast. Nulla and Kelly will rank high in our “Favorite Animal” awards. And, at least for me and James, Shannon goes right to the top of the Favorite Guide rankings.
MISC:
We loved this quote from a 1700s English botanist who visited Australia — sums up our bafflement at such a bizarre array of animals and plants: “A botanist finds himself in a new world. He can scarcely meet with any fixed point whence to draw his analogies.”
We’ve picked up some good Aussie slang already:
Cheese n bikkies (cheese and biscuits)
Puffed (out of breath)
Zoomies (hyperness – “He’s got the zoomies”)
Fattybumba (a fatty)
Tommy K (tomato ketchup)
