Lessons from the Outback: #5 Always watch out for crocs while crabbing...

Hi all,

Well, another month has flown by and I find myself often wonderingwhere on earth the time is going...

My time in Derby is up for now, I had a great last few weeks. Icontinued to work hard and had a couple of weeks of night shift thrownin for good measure, just to make sure I hadn't forgotten what theywere like I think! But I managed to fill my spare time easily, withfishing, crabbing and sightseeing...ahhh, what a life...

We had a great day out on the King Sound with Grant (nurse manager) and a couple of his friends. We took the boat out and had the rods cast but unfortunately the fish were not biting and the King Sound Barramundi were definitely not making any appearances. We cruised around looking for better spots, even found ourselves anchored to an abandoned barge in the middle of KIng Sound, but alas, still no fish however there was fabulous tanning to be had by all (I promise I really did have my sunscreen on too though!) and lovely company for a day out on the water. What I did realise from that day was that even though Derby is surrounded by water, you can still feel incredibly land-locked because you can't go into the water. Just having the salt air in your face was amazing.

About two weeks ago Tash (housemate) and I went on a great trip up to Windjara Gorge and Tunnel Creek. It was a long day starting at 8am and we didn't get home til 8pm but it was definitely worth it, a fabulous day. Windjara Gorge is up the Gibb RIver Rd (corrugated gravel 4WD rd - a very bumpy trip) and is an ancient reef that millions of years ago was underwater but now towers above the ground creating a magnificent gorge in the middle with white sand, green water and best of all, hundreds of freshwater crocodiles!

The scenery is breathtaking and the history is quite something too with fossils visible everywhere through the gorge. So we lay with the crocs for a while, enjoying the sunshine and loud screeching of the white parakeets that call Windjara home as well.

After leving Windjara Gorge we headed to Tunnel Creek where we did a little informal rock climbing into an underground cave sustem where there are all sorts of fabulous things like bats, crocs, eels and catfish to play with as well as some Aboriginal rock art and a few more Aboriginal stories to be told. And it all involves walking through the cave, almost waistdeep in very cold water, hopeing that you're not the one that discovers the croc, catfish or eels first. I'd sucked up enough courage by the end to go for a very chilly swim at the northern end of the cave only to be told after I got out that there was a huge croc in THAT pool! I think I truly had palpitations at that moment!

But the real croc experience came just last week after my last shift in Derby when my housemates and I were taken out by Brra Bob in his boat to the King Sound for a spot of crabbing.. well... crabbing is great fun, for humans but apparently for crocs too coz they love to come and stal not only the bait from the pots but any crabs that have climbed in as well! We were halfway thorugh our morning of crabbing and were getting into a nice routine of pulling up the crab pots, checking, re-baiting, putting them back down when I saw about 15m away from the boat a rather dark slim head bobbing in the water. I believe some rather delightful words came out of my mouth when I realised that I was staring at a salt-water crocs head and then followed the line in the water to find the end of his tail sticking out of the water some few metres further down! Not very reassuring when there's 5 of you in a little tinny boat the same length as the croc! So I raised the alarm as quietly as you might imagine but hollering about the "huge bloody Salty!!!!!" and when everyone went to have a look he dived right under.

So I was given a reasonable amount of grief about the supposed salty when who should choose to resurface but the said salty! And man, did everyone see him that time! He ws obviously a little curious about us as we were him, although I think there was possibly a little more fear on our boat than with dear Salty, because he had come closer by a considerable number of metres! Everyone got a good look at him and his size and his teeth and then Barra Bob hightailed it outta there with the excuse "no croc gonna get my crabs!". We all had a small sigh of relief, smiled at each other and then proceeded to burst into excited babbles of exclamation of the fact that WE saw a SALTY!!

Now for anyone who is interested and doesn't know the difference between the salties and the freshies listen up....

Freshies have a narrow jaw with a single line of raised scale onto their head and are relatively harmless to humans as long you leave them alone and don't bother them. They'll usually move away from you if you hop in to go swimming where they are.

But Salties on the other hand have quite an apetite for humans and if you're anywhere close, you will end up being the main course served for lunch - not nice. They're recognisable by their wide jaw, and I'm reasonably proud of myself because after a little research and small amount of practice I seem able to tell them apart! And just if you're interested the crabbing trip ended splendidly with 6 big mudcrabs being caught and promptly cooked up at the Nurses QUarters for lunch - Yum!

So after a yummy lunch of fresh crab, I grabbed a couple of hourssleep and then rose in time for my farewell party at the NursesQuarters! What a day! It was a great night, had the BBQ going, lotsof wine flowing and fell into bed around 3am - ouch!

Friday was pack up day in Derby, and as I was a little slow to startthe day, it was a good thing I didn't seem to accumulate too much inthe time I was there! When I was all packed and ready to go, Ingrid(housemate) and I hopped in Pauline's (housemate) car (bless her) andcruised down to Broome for a final weekend in the Northwest beforeheading south again, and what a weekend it was!

I don't think we managed 4 hours sleep between us over the whole weekend, partly due tonot being in bed long enough, partly due to the Outdoor Disco next toour backpackers and partly due to noisy neighbours and the substantiallack of any type of soundproofing once the disco had finished! But atleast we had Cable Beach to lie on all day to recover - nothing better. We also had a look at Gantheaume Pt with the beautiful redrock formations, dinosaur footprints and Anastacia's Pool, kinda cool. Anastacia's Pool is a circular area of rock that is rumoured to havebeen dug out of a large slab at Gantheaume Pt by an old lighthousekeeper for his wife who was riddled with arthritis. When there is a really high tide, the water comes up and splashes into the pool therefore filling it so his wife could sit in there to ease her pain, cool huh?

It was time to farewell Broome on Sunday morning and I flew back downto Perth for a couple of days that I have managed to fill quite easilywith catching up with Mary and Emma, seeing the 'Amazing Human Bodyexhibition' and shopping for all necessities for Asia! The time hasflown by, I'm now packed and organized and simply cannot wait to geton that plane and be in Bangkok! We leave for the airport any minutenow once i'm off the computer. Asia had better be ready for Red Ron -coz I'm on my way!

Take care all,Roni xxx