Nine times out of 10, it’s going to be a better experience to witness an animal in the wild, doing its instinctive thing, than see one confined to the boundaries of a cage in a zoo, with nothing more to explore than the same small patch of artificial habitat it has its entire life.
The 10th time is probably if that animal is a mumma bear charging at you, an angry black mamba chasing you or a saltwater crocodile popping up for a paddle alongside you at a freshwater waterfall — or anything else in that same league of fear that comes with a side of potential death.
Crocodiles are one of those frightening creatures that command respect and instil fear (or at least caution) in the mind of any human traipsing around croc country.
Crocs don’t give a damn if you’re there; they can’t be scared away in the same way snakes (who would rather be anywhere you’re not) can.
They will just eat you if they don’t want to co-exist with you.
I’m fascinated by them.
Terrified, but fascinated.
Looking at them in zoos and wildlife parks, often fixed in underwhelming statue-like stances on a small patch of land beside tiny pondage with barely enough water to stretch their reptilian legs into a swim, only enough to submerge and cool down (and possibly to momentarily escape the eyes of onlookers who gawk and squeal at them during every second of every opening hour), is saddening.
And anything but natural.
So any time I’ve found myself on holiday in their territory, such is my fascination with these ancient man-eating giants, I’ve felt compelled to see them in their native environment.
The most recent experience was on a croc-jumping cruise near Fogg Dam, not too far from Darwin, on a leaking boat not a whole lot bigger than old mate’s tinnie you’d find on the Goulburn.
You could argue that baiting crocs with frozen chooks to perform like circus monkeys for boatloads of tourists gives not such a natural window into their world; and to be honest, I’d probably agree.
Nevertheless, while it seems gimmicky, seeing these monsters sidle up next to the boat only arm’s length from where you’re sitting, giving you chilling side-eye and then launching their multiple-metres’ long bodies clean up into the sky vertically to clamp that bait gives you an almost too-close-for-comfort look at their physique.
You can see every wound, every scar, every tooth, every scale, every ridge on their backs, almost every taste bud on their tongues.
You feel them bumping the boat, you feel the water splashing you, you hear the chomping of their powerful jaws slamming shut.
It’s a full interactive experience with untamed beasts.
Yes, they might be artificially lured to the boats, but that’s really where the insincerity ends.
There’s no making friends with these creatures — they would eat the hand that fed them the frozen chooks quicker than you could say Steggles.
In our hour-long cruise travelling a kilometre or two on the Northern Territory’s Adelaide River, we came across probably 10 crocs, saw three or four of those jump and witnessed a scuffle between the two biggest males in the area (including world-famous Dominator).
It was a tour really worth taking — well priced for the whole family and just the right duration.
On a Daintree tour out of Port Douglas that took us into the rainforest, to Mossman Gorge, Cape Tribulation and many other wild and wonderful places we might’ve seen an elusive cassowary, we had a short journey down a section of the Daintree River on a girls’ trip a few years’ back.
It wasn’t a specific croc-spotting cruise, but once the skipper had told us all the story about a juvenile croc that had jumped into his boat just a couple of weeks beforehand, we all kept our eyes peeled.
There we spotted just three crocs; two on the banks and one swimming.
I’m sure there were hundreds more we didn’t see.
Being this was the first time I’d seen crocs in the wild, three was enough to excite me.
But my favourite experience seeing these predators would have to have been on the Proserpine River in Queensland, not far from Airlie Beach.
Within just a couple of minutes of boarding the Whitsunday Crocodile Safari boat, we spotted our first croc on the first bend.
It was July, so it was cool-ish, which was a great time for spectators, as the banks were teeming with sunbathing crocodiles of all genders, shapes and sizes, including — dare I say cute — little two-year-old hatchlings.
The animals were just going about their regular daily lives while we watched on, with no interference from the passengers, tour operators or the boats themselves.
A little swim here, a little mud slide there, a little scrap and wrestle; you know, standard croc things.
The population on this stretch of river must have been enormous.
They say for every crocodile you see, there are 10 you don’t.
And we saw more than we could possibly count.
Of course, only one per cent of the hatchlings actually make it to adulthood, while the rest are killed mostly by their own kind.
Crocodiles manage their own population, so as brutal as that sounds and as sad as it makes me to think about those little cuties being taken out by one of their much bigger and far uglier rellos, that’s just nature.
And I reckon it’s always better when we just spectate and don’t interfere with that.
If you find yourself in croc country, I urge you to get out on a boat and visit the wild ones in their homes before choosing to visit their captive cousins in the artificial lairs inside zoological parks within the concrete jungles.
While those places do great things for conservation and education, it is just not the same as seeing a wild beast behaving wildly in the wild.